The air runs cool and crisp
through the cracks in the window.
It rings with the sweetness of flowers
newly awakened from winter's slumber.
It warns of an approaching storm.

The branches outside
dance lightly
in the muted gray light
while birds flit anxiously,
shouting jumbled felicitations
into the morning.

It's days like this
when I think of you –
when I think of then –
when the days were alive
with the unseen stirrings
of the natural world,
and I was privy to the secrets
of that greater majesty.

You knew it too.
You must have.
When the mist hung heavy on the mountains
and rolled through fields
and over sleeping waters,
you must have known then
that it was magic.

Here, now,
in my glass case,
I starve.
I ache
for that sweet morning –
for the gentle kiss of the sun
as it cautiously peers
through shaded skies.

And so, deprived as I am,
my thoughts wander back.
Where are you now?
Where are they all?
Where am I?
Inside looking out –
Imagining myself out of this box
and into the day;
into the magic –
while the air runs cool and crisp
through the cracks in the window.