Ashes to Ashes

Ashes.

Blown in on baby’s breath.

Careening off tricycles and kindergarten walls

decorated with false promises of eternal innocence.

Enduring ashes.

Falling from billowing leaves as they struggle to hold on in the

gusting winds of my November storm.

Hail-beaten, screaming ashes.

Inspiring strength despite obvious fragility.

Justifiably obvious fragility.

Kisses breathe for tender ashes,

living in jars or on tabletops.

Memorializing moments of gentle breeze when

nimble minds held feeble hands.

Open to the endearing

possibility of forever after and never-ending stories.

Quintessential fantasies turned to ash and

returned to the soil from whence they came.

Surrendered souls laid to rest in

tombstoned memories of kindergarten walls, while

undulating,

vibrating

waves of sound hum through the

xylophones that play my final reprieve; as

yearning ashes, cloaked in smiles,

zealously dance macabre.