Though frightening for her father,

it was beautiful to see

a graceful, smiling girl

gliding from tree to tree.

Quiet places were discovered

where she could fly outside.

Her father would watch from below

with feelings of great pride.

But as the girl grew older,

the pressure, it grew, too.

And slowly something happened—

less and less, she flew.

So in tiny pieces,

little by little, and day by day,

the whole problem of floating

simply floated away.

By the end of grade school,

she didn’t float at all.

By the end of junior high,

it was just a dream; that’s all.

High school and college ended.

The daughter moved away.

She took a job and grew up

as they’d all hoped she’d do one day.

No one could recall

or say quite what had happened.

Was the floating they’d seen real

or something they’d all imagined?

But every now and then,

something she saw or felt or heard

would make her heart skip a beat—

like looking up to see a bird.

She’d think to herself, “Dear girl,

something must be wrong with you.”

Yet, somewhere not too distant,

her father felt it, too.