A really beautiful love poem and it made me think of Crystal too.
Life can be so very cruel indeed:/

A beautiful tragic story, written in perfect pen Silvia!

*hugs*

5/5 Ingrid

Awesome write, very sad that its a reality for so many 5/5 ben thompson

Sylvia,

I haven't commented on a poem of yours for some time, so here goes! :O)

She sits on the floor by her cedar hope chest,
filled over the years with letters, gifts, photos,
her wedding dress, things memories are made of.
One by one, she touches them with tender care.
^
There is a lot of information in this first stanza. Firstly this lady is a mature and has decided to indulge in personal nostalgia. I imagine that this maybe in an old walk in attic, dusty and dimly lit, perhaps? Around her are various items, some of them mentioned, others possibly not. Each one was stored in this cherished cedar hope chest and deliberately placed for their sentimental value. I am not sure what a hope box is, but I imagine that it is something like a pirates chest, no? So, she sits there with her life around her, symbolised in various artefacts.

Letters tied with ribbon, edges stained and worn
from each of the times she has read them over.
Time never changes the words, they stay the same,
words of love sent from her handsome soldier boy.
^
This stanza focuses on the letters. The image of the letters carefully tied with ribbons really brings home to the reader just how cherished they are, especially considering the mention of them being read numerous times over the years.
Here we discover that these letters are from a soldier, during the war. This now raises the question whether he ever returned home to his sweetheart who is now years on sitting here reading your words, which are undoubtedly full of love for his sweetheart. Absence like this makes the heart yearn with love like no other absence. The question now in my mind is did he return, or did her yearning never stop.

Photographs of happy times, taken before he left for war.
Each a memory of a time and place in their life.
Her wedding dress has yellowed with the passage of time,
never worn on that very special day she had planned.
^
The story unfolds nicely here. Confirmation of a war and there happy times before he had to leave. Also the wedding dress, but not from a marriage, but rather from a planned marriage that never actually took place. This is quite a shock as it confirms that he did not actually return from the war, meaning ultimately that he was killed.

Atop all these things lays a telegram, the few words
she knows by heart, for she has read them a million times.
"I am sorry to inform you that your loved one was
killed in action", words delivered on their wedding day.
^
Here we are confirmation with the telegram of his sad, premature death. Sadness we feel for her, as she remembers his smile, their happy times together. It is like he is speaking to her as she reads his words as she traces the contours of his chiselled face in the photograph. Why had fate been so unkind to her, why? I imagine her tears are rolling now and she is prepared for them with her tissue.

With care she places each item back into its place,
until the next time she needs to see and feel her memories.
With age, they seem to fade a little bit every day,
but she knows those memories will always be in her hope chest.
^
A lovely way to bring this sad tale to an end, but as we learn, memories such as these never end when they are stored in a hope chest. I now imagine that this hope chest is something we all have inside of us, a place where our deepest emotions are stored. Years may reduce their impact, but the deepest feeling never fully fade, do they?

Well done Sylvia on this heartfelt poem.

Michael

My goodness, this made me cry. a good friend of mine has been in iraq for quite a while. and i thought of him and his girlfriend throughout the whole thing. so many things went through my mind.
the emotion and details were so vivid, i could picture everything as i read it. the worn letters, the dress yellowing with time. this was perfect, heartbreaking, but perfect.
i don't know what else to say.
i loved it.

-Liz