The Tulip Driven Life

By: Thomas Fletcher Booher  I run through the meadow into the moon's gleam that trickles through the trees and splashes across the grass. And in the brightness all I see is you.   Your hair is illumined, your eyes green, your face round and delicate. You wear grey silk, like nightwear, and extend your hand to me, beckoning me to come.  I looked back but for a moment, and you were gone.  I cannot say why I turned. Perhaps I think it too wondrous to be real, to fanciful to be happening. And now that you're gone, I dread to think it all a dream. But then I approach where you stood, a strand of your radiant hair wafting in the gentle breeze, and as I involuntarily place my open palm beneath it, it rests upon it. I squeeze my hand- and my heart- around it. And that contact with you, was all it took to know you were real, to know I was not chasing shadows. So I searched. I journeyed through the forest, days without food. I slept in the cold, damp night, and