In the Cold Embrace

She painted the silence between stars, Colors blooming where sorrow hides, Each stroke a whisper, each canvas wide With dreams that leapt beyond her scars. Younger by decades, yet wise with light, She’d gift you skies with a laughing tone, A mountain’s hush, a prayer in stone— And never once spoke of her fight. The pain, she wrapped in sacred thread, Wove it soft in god-lit space, While we, unknowing, saw her grace— Not the shadows that quietly bled. No bitter cries, no mournful tale, She bore her grief with a painter’s pride, And when the healing failed, she tried A higher power, pale and pale. Her last breath came like snow on glass, A hush, a fall, a peace, a hush— As if she slipped from morning’s blush To where all suffering comes to pass. I hold her art like holy fire, Each canvas now a memory’s breath— Alive, though she sleeps past death, In brushstrokes that will never tire. So here's to her—who lived, not bowed, Who gave, not broke, who passed, not fled— And in the cold, kind arms of dread, Left behind colors that speak aloud.