there is one small girl                                                                

sitting alone

on a park bench

reading her book.

her eyes flit back and forth

across the pages,

only glancing up

briefly

to watch children run

through grass,

powdered with pollen and

she sneezes.

rays of gold shift from right to left,

and shapes of grey

act as reciprocals across

thin sheets of paper,

for every action

has an equal

and opposite

reaction.

but she is not here –

no, she has found a way

to escape time and space

and suspend herself in a moment –

a fractured image written in words

because pictures would not do

the shattered glassy photograph

due justice.

this small girl

is gone from reality –

perhaps for the better

people stress and cry and shout

and all she does is

move her eyes back and forth

like windshield wipers –

her only goal is to see the path in front of her

and she is me

and I am she

and we are so utterly lost

in a world uncomfortably still

yet so filled with life and love and laughter

but we cannot find our place

because it may not exist

and so we look to words

to find any and every form of expression –

has someone else been able to put our thoughts into words?

we do not know.

but we will keep looking

as the grass loses its pollen and grows a skin of ice

and the children stop running around in sundresses and shorts

and start to pull on boots and beanies

because even then,

our books will not freeze –

the stories are too full of warmth.