If you were a bird
soaring high above the North Carolina
mountain tops that afternoon,
you would see a girl standing
atop a tall, steeply sloped slab of stone.
Her cascading curls
are one with the wind
as her pale green eyes
take in the glorious view around her.
She looks triumphantly
down the wall of rock
she has just succeeded in summiting.
The ringing sound of her friends joyfully laughing
rides the breeze
up to where she is standing, then floats
away on one of the carelessly floating
puffy white clouds that
paint the sky.

In the distance
she hears water
tumbling down smooth rocks,
a waterfall that never ceases
to plummet
down into the pool below
sending fireworks of water
through the air.
Tomorrow she will go swimming
in those clear, sparkling waters
dancing with sunlight;
now she is on the rock
with no care
in the world,
letting her arms flail freely around her,
the whispering breeze her Leonardo diCaprio,
the rock her Titanic,
this one girl,
this second,
the queen of this world.