Believing

I'm too old now - many years too old - to believe in the monsters under the bed. And the ghosts in the attic are long gone - except for sometimes in my nightmares. It's a little sad, I guess, this business of being all grown up. But I still believe in magic. How can you not? A summer night - smell of sunlight still caught in your hair even as the darkness settles, broken by fireflies like fairylights. A storm rolling in overhead, low rumbles of thunder the whispers of the children who play in the clouds. Rain drumming like pixie-fingers against your bare skin, the lady in the moon, laughing, singing, peeking out from behind a gray veil of clouds. Just magic. Feel of wet green grass under your toes, brush of faint warm breeze tickling the back of your neck in a passing gesture of familiarity. Sitting on your porch watching lightning zigzag across the sky in the distance, and wishing you could catch some of it, keep it forever because like the most magic of things it won't last.