The black thorn...

This twisted and bitter figure
A thorn in the side of our life.
Is now leaving its lonely station:
To its final call it must yield.

The locality hardly notices
As it's lowered into the earth;
It has only one solitary mourner
Weeping for all she's worth.

For who would recall, but a mother,
As the tears come down in showers,
That this young black hand in its early life
Was a breathtaking whiteness of flowers ?