The Faeries

(a found poem from “Faery Tale: One Woman’s Search for Enchantment,” by Signe Pike) 

I really don’t believe in faeries;

because we are battered by adulthood

            taxes – loss -laundry –

            nine to five – deceit and distrust –

            by the crushing desire to be

                        thin – wealthy – successful –

                        popular – happy – in love

walking on a planet disintegrating around us,

the world is falling apart, and outside

            the playground is splintered and dark.

Where can we go to feel the things we need to feel,

            the soothing balm of faith, loved, safe,

            happy? What about hopeful?

What has happened to the magic we were surrounded by

as children, a little boy or girl, inside every man or woman,

who still loves popcorn, still afraid of monsters under the bed,

still believes that fairy tales really do come true? The loss

of our magic, a worst sort of emotional deforestation,

forgetting, perhaps, what our forest ever looked like.

What are we here for,

            If not to live our own fairy tales?

 

We seem to have abandoned the faeries, relegated them

to the nursery, science turning an ancient belief

into a superstition; they are spiritual beings, faeries,

in a spiritual realm, standing and waiting in a reflective vigil,

have waited so long, trying to reestablish contact. Together,

we can heal the planet, sick now and in need of lots

of healing – the faeries can help us to do that: step, now,

into the faery realm, reclaim a small piece of yourself,

see a faery with your heart and mind as well as your eyes.

That’s where the real magic lies, learning to trust. In Scotland,

people remember where they came from – we do not –

from the earth, composed from its elements; something

about Scotland, a faery realm, that allows us to truly feel

the land, and the force of it all can bring tears to our eyes

            - everything speaks, if we can only learn how to listen;

            - if only we can make the faeries believe in us once more.

The faeries sweep into our lives if we only invite them,

to show us how

            to live better, love better, treat our planet better.

            teach us natural ways to heal, and maybe,

                        help us come to a better understanding

                        of what our bodies truly need.

They are the Necromancers of the spirit world, to show us

            how to honor our magic, our myths, our legends.

In keeping all these things alive, we are all a part of the faery faith.

 

But how, how can we expect to see and experience a faery kingdom

            until we have come alive enough to notice

            and be grateful for the beauty of our own?

Everything has life and soul – have a relationship with everything,

now, in a precise, individual way, reengagement with the world,

reengagement with the minutia of the world – and you do, and you will,

genuinely touch faery land. Make a figure, draw, paint, fashion it,

imbued by its own personality, for it has helped you to make it;

it wants to be brought into our very human world, some interaction

or relationship that needs to take place between you and the being

that wants to inhabit it, humans a conduit to create something.

Stare into its eyes, eyes so incredibly individual, so incredibly real,

Something long forgotten gazing into the eyes of a real, live faery,

a reality reengaging you on a deep level to what that world, that Faery

Place, is really like; when you come back, you’ll experience your own

world in a much more open and connective way.

 

Within our imagination lies the key to accessing even the most

distant of worlds, the faery realm, the good people, a middle nature

betwixt man and angel, intelligent, studious spirits and light,

changeable bodies trying to reestablish contact, to heal the land,

to help us remember where we came from, from Earth, composed

from its elements, the only thing that can truly sustain us:

            to heal us once again, restore our magic,

                        feeling the things we need to feel,

                                    free to live our own fairy tales.

Snow White

(Part of the Princess Series of Poems)

Disney’s original princess, white as snow, lips of red

as blood, and hair as ebony, a great beauty, was but

seven years old, as the old Grimm story goes, left to die

at the hands of the huntsman, ordered by the wicked

stepmother – always the stepmother – in a jealous rage,

mature beauty comparing herself to youthful charm,

her vanity ultimately her own demise, the only ending

fit for this fabled tale; and the handsome prince wanted

not Snow White, no princess rescued, but her beauty

to gaze upon, her crystal coffin a decorative display

to feed his own vain attempt to capture beauty,

to keep it for himself, a piece of art, flaunted perhaps:

a far cry from Disney’s storied princess brought to life

on the silver screen and into our hearts..

Ah, but the dwarves now, as then, all seven in number,

are the heroes in this fairy tale, the real keepers

of Snow White’s beauty, taking her in, protecting her,

stern advice and warnings against strangers and evil,

loving her, heartfelt, not for her beauty alone, but because

she needed them, even in death’s sleep, and they, in turn, her.

Chocolates in a Heart-shaped Box

1.

It snowed today, that light, fluffy

stuff to remind me of winters past,

long past, holding your hand and making

snow angels, bundled warm against the cold.

 

                        2.

I imagine you back

into my life, old memories,

you who first taught me love,

the joy of that discovery

and the pain of losing you.

 

                        3.

We were young and carved our initials

into a tree, that old promise of “forever together,”

but we went our separate ways by summer’s end;

yet, you and me, we are still together,

forever in the memories we made,

in the stories we tell.

 

                        4.

New Year’s Day at the beach, bundled up

to keep warm, to keep out the Atlantic’s cold

spray, the gulls above us squawking, suspended

in flight as we stare across the ocean to distant shores

unseen, shores too far to reach, the two of us,

sitting here, dreaming, wondering, suspended too.

 

                        5.

I would give you flowers, roses

or daisies, a single pink carnation

when the cash was low in our teen years,

but money well spent, just to say I loved you;

if I could, I would send them again, today,

all of you who shared my life, briefly, enriching it,

and shared your love, equally returned, even now,

love in a long stem rose or a pink carnation,

chocolates in a heart-shaped box.

We Were Humanity

We were humanity,

crawling from the depth of the sea

or banished from Eden’s Garden,

evolving, the tiller of soil,

weaver of flax, the huntsman providing,

forming into clans and tribes,

kingdoms, towns, and cities,

organized into territories, states

and nations, centers of commerce,

and intellectual pursuits, the arts,

growing larger, countries ordered

across this revolving, rotating

rock in space, Earth’s people

building lives and community,

and it was so, blessed as goodness.

 

We were humanity.

And now we watch the earth

burning around us, the sound

of rockets and bullets and hatred,

a red-yellow glow signifying death,

wondering, perhaps, where we erred,

our prayers to the gods-that-be falling

now on deaf ears, alone in our silence,

awaiting an uncertain end …

 

We were humanity.