The Broken Lady

She doesn’t move

The broken lady

At least when the mortals are passing

She may contemplate much

From the bounds of her post

She’s more than the stepping stones

But less than the carp in the fountain pools

Placed among the greenery 

‘She beautiful,’ they say

About her nothing ways

Perhaps themselves to write her story

But for transient fluttering leaves

She stands alone

Is she a shrine?

To modesty perhaps

To speak up, she cannot

Or cast her eyes, cast down

Ashamed she holds her clothes

Against her sober form

‘She’s not moving, it’s the branches’

‘She’s not calling, it’s the wind’

Her trees are so protective

Silent witness to her fall

They hid her stony arm 

Beneath a bed of leaves

And she was resurrected

Only to be buried deeper still

Her features once refined

Are softened by the rain

Her face is an illusion

To make you look again 

And times goes on - unsettled

On the watch of the broken lady

In her powerlessness, a knowing

In her abstinence, a scream

She won’t fall again

Her roots go down to ethereal seams