As a I girl, I had
a small music box,
which I played over and over.
I wound it up,
and the ballerina inside
would spin and spin,
her dance and the song
a simple embrace of youth.

There are versions of myself
that I have long since forgotten,
long since forsaken.
The rhythm will find you,
make you into someone new.
But this tune brings me back,
always,
to the little girl
who spent hours watching ballerinas dance.

The puffs of air around me
were impossible to catch,
but I jumped along
and snatched at them anyways.
The beauty lay in the chase,
not the capture.
Wild things were meant to be free.

Beauty loses its touch if caged.

The leaves all fluttered in imperfect synchronicity.
Like a dance,
unchoreographed,
yet so beautifully so.
The day was filled with flaws,
but the pure, effervescent blue sky
against the too-large green of sprouting trees
made all the rest melt away.
A hill that was covered by snow last month
now screams with yellow dandelions.

When humanity fails,
man may always return
to where we were never meant to leave:
to the blue, green, and yellows of nature.

It's hard to feel sad
when the sun shines in rays,
persistent as a mother,
and just as sweet and caring.

Green, microscopic leaves
flutter like the wings of fairies.
If cleanliness is next to godliness,
I feel like I'm in the clouds.

Azure skies stretch above me,
the sun a fiery devil.
It warms my hands as I drive,
the steering wheel
a permit for freedom.

Rain pours down on the windshield,
and leaves rustle in my wake.
It is still cold, the air clinging to the crispness of winter,
but I roll my window down
and feel the pitter-patter of droplets.
Breathe deep the clean essence of life.

Spring is here. And joy begun anew.
All is possible. All is simple once more.

As her final breaths escaped her,
she felt calmed by the epiphany
that peace would follow her.
Not right away, but it would come.
Sleepy Sunday afternoons,
and days spent without thought.
Her pain now was fleeting,
so corporeal in nature
as to be meaningless;
her mind was as white
as the snow in which she lay.

All was still. All was done.
And all was begun anew.