Wildflowers and Cloud Animals Villanelle

I remember my youth wandering fields full of wildflowers

plucking small bouquets, while the warmth of the sun

rested upon my shoulders, and I would look up at the sky as it towers

over me.  And these hours

as a little girl, when I would run

across the countryside chasing after cloud animals I scour.

Trying to pluck them from the sky and put them in my pocket with loose flower

petals, so I can build a collage of my dreams and fun

adventures before the clouds thunder and crash leaving me to cower

while raindrops fell from the darkened skies and these showers

flood my skin, until my clothes clung to me and the wind begun

to howl and I knew my afternoon had soured.

And as a little girl, I would race home as fast as I could as the storm devoured

all the blue, light, and clouds, and left me spying from my bedroom with undone

daydreams as petals, pebbles and feathers from my sunny encounters

scatter at my feet, and these memories find me on stormy nights, leaving me overpowered.