My Red Water Lily: A Poem by Amita Raj

At sunset, I ambled towards a calm, crystalline lake
While my shroud of sadness I endeavored so hard to forsake
How it covered me, this awful opaque blanket so dark
Weighing me with past tragedies dimming my spark
But to remove that cloudy shroud I did so badly fail
So, it hovered over me in a grimly dragging trail
Suddenly then I saw a fervid flush of golden light
From the skies regally it lit a red water lily in sight
And in this bold beacon of jasper and melting gold
The fiery facets of that beauteous blossom did unfold
And in those silken petals I saw a warm vermillion gleam
A vision of luscious loveliness, a softly emerging dream
In bursting blush it poured like a river of rubies onto my hand
Clustering in bejeweled trinkets, glittering and so grand
Forming necklaces for me, in a sea of crimson stars to shine
For my soul’s imprints like precious gems to enshrine
And though that shroud still trails in a cloudly black mist
’tis with these red petals of hope that I now have my tryst