To Touch the Sky 
By Susan Tjernagel

She reaches her toes up towards the clouds

Pushing herself higher and higher until she almost touches the sky

Dreaming of carefree days of childhood

Hours spent with her brother and sister, side by side on the swings

Feeling as if they could fly

Even into the dusk when fireflies dot the air with their delightful little lights

And a cool breeze blows, she pushes on towards the moon now drawing nigh

Nightingales begin to sing. Noise of distant cars on the highway beyond is drowned

Out by sounds of night creatures stirring. And the woman in the swing ceases to ask

Her ever-nagging “Why?”

Pressures mounting, trying to keep worries at bay, having escaped the tension in the

Air thick enough to cut with a knife, she lets out a pent-up sigh

“Not tonight,” the girl—who now is a woman—says out loud. “Not tonight.”

All the world’s at peace. To all else—if just for a few solitary hours—she has said

Goodbye