In the dewy mist, snow-peas grow on stalky limbs, blended into the mousy brown forest. For now, their buds are pale, firm with cold, hesitant to release their beauty to the world. They bulge with green, the silhouettes of miniature peas visible in their pre-ripened state.

April will come, and bring with it warmer sunshine and soft petals, small white flowers perched from paleness, extending themselves so graciously to sunlight, unfurling their delicacy as if they are praising the sun. I wonder why they are so shy, why their flowers ***** down.

I wonder what they know.  
I wonder if they have souls.

I am a child then; I am soaring under dark flocks of birds, spending my summer days squeezing their firm buds, for I am a sanguine sycamore elf with plump berries spilling out of my mouth and juice staining my knees. The snow-peas and I prance in the meadow, and the sun is half past noon, and there is nothing more that matters now.

I will return home, planted with kisses of nature: grass stains and ruffled hair and there’s something deeper too planted in me, a desire to love, love that loves without eyes, without knowing.
I return pink fleshed, bitten, scolded for not wearing sunscreen.

I do not know better yet. I do not understand the world of adults and their yawns, their grins, their whispers and all knowing dinner table glances. I know the world outside though, I know to not touch poison ivy and stinging nettle and I know the grace of the forest, where the meadow winds into woodland and back to Turtle Pond where mosquitos gather in clouds and bullfrogs lay dormant in murky waters, their beady eyes lurking just above water.

I know when a snow-pea is ripe; when its leaves have turned and it has flowered, like a full moon, so gentle under the sun, so gentle under the sky. And when the snow-peas are ripe, I will return to their scattered bunches, and I will dance with them under the moon.