by IRENE FOWLER, Contributor

“Well, there’s one thing:
they can’t order me to stop dreaming.”
– Cinderella

“In order to rise from its own ashes,
a phoenix first must burn.”
– Octavia Butler

“Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can the floods drown it:
If a man would give all the substance
of his house for love, It would
utterly be contemned.”
– Song of Solomon 8: 7 (KJV)

To read Irene’s poem “Cinderella” click: