Yearning For Frost Flowers

I yearn for when my troubles were as frost flowers; when the intermittent wresting of my inner strings was natural , a part of growing up, and when, from tender stem , there emerged feelings of confliction that whirled into a strange collage-puberty's design. But whether my ordeals then were unique, like the latticework of snowflakes, or as simple as a raindrop on my pane, each one, wing footed, eventually melted from my mind. Later came the common plagues: marital discord, effects of growing old and other irritations, weeds I plucked and dandelion fluff I blew away. These I could abide. But other winters passing now have brought trials which are as a thorny web. In unexpected times of drought, from seemingly nowhere. . . they sprout. Star Thistles (over which I've no control) come time and time again to prick my soul. Unlike the fleeting flowers of frondescent youth (whose memory retains for me some beauty), these thistles of infliction are both ugly and unyielding. Surrounding me are melancholy notes, and though the melody is rallentando, I think this dirge may never have an end. For Catie Lindsey's "Dark Prose" Contest