The seeds of Great Expectations rooted deep,

but she tasted their fruits not in the fair soil of trinkets

fashioned from sturdy stems,

cabinetry of beauty and elegance

displaying the wares of Kings,

nor in the expression of the printed page,

pouring forth speech from pulpy loins.

Less still the warmth of a billion fires,

songs of a billion kettles

as her fuel gave Man comfort from the endless darkness.

It came, not in the power and might

of the straight-rimmed arrow’s shaft

or the machinations of the torture room,

but in the beautiful irony of Life –

the abandonment of her burdens,

 bouquet of ultimate surrender.

Here, where she came to terms with her brokenness,

her truest beauty harvested

Great Expectations.