There was a time when I was bright and bold. Where I stood my ground and I couldn't help but be seen.

I had many visitors and I was glad for it. They needed me and I enjoyed their company. I was content with my surroundings. Confident with my place in the world, never questioning, just knowing that I was enough and I never wanted for more.

Then I started to fade. I lost my golden shine. I was sparse. Gone was my thick mane and all that remained was the outline of what once was.

I was becoming weak and wobbly, no longer able to stand proudly at attention. Unsure of myself and what was to become of me. No more visitors, I could give them nothing and they passed me by.

Then one day I was forced out of the only home I had ever known. Forced up and out and was able to see, able to see, for the first time, above the only place I had never left. As I looked from this new vantage point I could see how the land I knew went on forever and there was so much more. I could see those like me but there were so many others that I could never even try to describe. It was all there, it was always there and I just had never been able to see it before.

Just as I was catching my breath, just as I was taking in this new perspective, in a rush, in a thrust, with a gust of wind that pulls me from myself and I fly.

I am free. I am pulled apart. I am no longer myself, yet I have all the capabilities to be so much more, to create so much more.

I am a dream.

I am a wish.

I fly, I catch the wind, just like the birds. Riding the waves of an invisible sea, I travel above the others I see.

So much more.

How could I know that all this is possible? How could I know this was, is, all here? How could I be sad about my lost flourish when losing that was the only way to experience this wonderful ride?

My wish came true. A wish I never knew I was capable of having.

And it is more.

I start my descent back toward the ground that I know.

I land lightly.

I am embedded in the earth.

Covered with leaves.

It is dark.

I sleep and I dream of the skies I was lucky enough to soar through.