Bloom

The flowers of the field bloomed all in a single day.  So joyous were the children that they could not be contained within classrooms.  Running and screaming in their high-toned voices, they signaled the whole of the town that, without tradition or planning, today would be a holiday.

Chairs and tables were removed from great rooms to make way for dancing.  Baskets of red and white and purple and pink flowers poured onto the hard floor.  Music was played and some adults joined in the dancing.  Others clapping and smiling back at all the innocent joy, writhing and rolling and stomping and laughing.  It was as if the cumulative effect of children's bliss was more than could ever be contained and, once released, became a creature of its own, creating a real world that looked and felt as if it were a dream.  But an enchanted, childish dream that now, even adults could see, feel, believe once again.

The day progressed into night and the air was stuffed with pollen and petals and joyous revelry.  So much so that speckled ravens heard and wondered aloud in squawks that settled in above the laughter and celebration.  They lined rooftops, fences, window sills and telephone wires in their ominous conspiracy.

The night came and the children tired and took back their dreams from the adults who, aware of their foolishness, gathered families and made their responsible ways home, humming forgotten nursery rhymes.

Raven and night

Like hand in glove

Where people have been

Raven comes

Invited by mad refrains

Incited by holiday's remains

He flies from roof and wire and lane

He sweeps the streets

Cleans them up

Raven and night 

Like hand in glove

Finding nothing more substantial than flowers, the ravens returned to the night, disappointed.

The next day children walked, exhausted from the previous night's events.  They followed sidewalks and paths and cut across fields of headless stems by the thousands, but noticed only green.

In future seasons, flowers would take their staggered time in blooming.  Though it was a thing to recall, when the flowers of the field bloomed all in a single day.