One found surreptitiously; a blossom of a foreign season
A silhouette of everything one covets, creates, craves
All comes full circle as pulse quickens without reason
An illusory glance of spirituality, solely present to create
A sun on fire at the end and beginning
And from glow to inferno, void of all and any dimming
One found inescapable, the alleviation of artistic ailment
A shadow of an earlier self in its purest form
All falling into place by way of streaming ink, atonement
An open-ended dialogue where essence and intellect storm
The stars arouse fire from conception to actuality,
And from blackness to daylight align, then fade into obscurity.

Samantha Schroeder is a freelance journalist working for a foreign policy organization in Washington, D.C. A 2012 graduate of the University of Central Florida, she took her degree in philosophy, completing an honors thesis on the nature of love and presenting her research at conferences across the United States. In the summer of 2012, she was a librarian at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She arrived in D.C. in the fall of 2012 to pursue journalism as a fellow with the Student Free Press Association.