Beautiful Creatures Brief As These

Like butterflies but lately come
From long cocoons of summer
These little girls start back to school
To swarm the sidewalks, playing fields,
And litter air with color.

So slight they look within their clothes,
Their dresses looser than the Sulpher's wings.
It seem that even if the wind alone
Were not to break them in the lofty trees,
They could not bear the weight of things.

And yet they cry into the morning air
And hang from the railings upside down
And laugh, as though the world were theirs
And all its buildings, trees, and stones
Were toys, were gifts of a benignant sun.