Wildflowers

They grew as we grew. They bloomed even as we did. The wildflowers graced that sloping mountainside lay dormant in the deep rivulents of snow in Winter, only to shyly curve their stalks upwards in Spring, and bloomed in watercolor torrents in Summer, and lasted deep into the Autumn even as the grass burnished and shone.

We wove them into each others' hair, bright crowns of red, yellow and purple adorning us; trails of them lingering on young shoulders. I was the King of June, and you the Princess of September, and together we placed the blooms on the tepid and shallow stream and watched as they disappeared from our sight.

We took the train from that place, the dark iron beast stark against the pastoral landscape, grunting and emitting sulfurous fumes: but we were adults, and the valley was for children whose heads could be filled with the fancies of youth; with crowns of blooms; with idle days spent by the stream, ambitions disappearing where the horizon did.

What foolishness that thought was! The mountain and the valley and the stream; they are ours, and have been waiting an interminable amount of time for us to return, cycling through the seasons silently until we came back.

Return, Princess of September, and I will crown you once again, with wildflowers.