She was a beautiful gleam of light –that

last bit of gleaming sunset that strikes

through the sky like the chiming ring of

 

a spoon on fine crystal. She was a lone

dandelion seed floating on the breeze,

and the first breath of spring on a day

 

where warm air caresses and kisses the

old and faltering snow. She was a bird

that dipped and dived over the ocean,

 

bobbing across the ripples in the wind

and skipping over the frothed tips of

waves. She was a small, tender

 

blackberry ripening on the end of a

delicate branch in the heat of August,

and the shimmer of snow in November

 

as it dances down in satiny silver sheets.

She was all of this and more, far more

than could be imagined. But of

 

everything that she was and of everything

that she would be, she was transient as

the seasons, and lost as the children that

 

know no family or place to call home. She

was destined to fly, destined to soar above

the heads of those below her. Her wings

 

were strong and beautiful, and launched her

frail body into the sky beneath the glowing

golden orb whose fire matched her soul. But

 

arrows shot from the ground grew fast, because

good things fall and never last. She crumpled to

the dirt, forced to join the broken world below.