I would lie beneath the trees
And dream the hours away, in heat
And listen to the hum of bees
The apples tumble at my feet
Full of warmth and summer sun
Dripping juice so ripe and sweet
How smooth this nectar on the tongue!
I steep my sense in joy, replete
And feel that I am ever young
The sun will sink, the evening comes
As the hourglass, tireless, runs
But I will stay here, in the night,
To look up to the endless stars,
Rotating glimmers fill my sight
The voice, a breath on a breeze,
stellar, shining, white feather floating,
scattered stardust, soft twinkle,
a warm whisper close to my ear
”Yes, the light was the beginning,
the beginning of the myth,
the myth that brought us all here,
the myth that we had to be.”
”Then the stars gathered round
humming and singing,
singing celestial sound.
The world started spinning,
spinning the loom of itself.”
”No one said, LET THERE BE LIGHT!
Light was, light is.
There is light and darkness,
it’s shadow.”
”But in the great-long-forever-timeless-nothingness
it was suddenly 5.15am!”
When I asked for the theatre prompt sheet
for the book of love and imagination,
(I already had the script),
she projected this onto a board,
along with a dim, faded photograph
of the Mad Hatter leaning against a screen,
nonchalant, in a space
beside a gap in a tattered curtain.
He had stood still there a long time
a very long time ago.
A crowd of children passed by,
wandering home from school,
pushing, shoving, chattering,
telling how they knocked all the apples down
from the garden wall,
but that wasn’t it at all.
They’d forgotten paradise.
When Arthur’s Golden Age had ended
and the country fell to mourn,
its true, some beauty fair had ended
like the sparkling morning dew.
The earth took on a darker hue.
But I was one who bore him safely,
far away to other shores,
where the mists hung thick and shrouded,
and all good hearts can be renewed.
We sailed close and he was lifted
in our gentle loving arms.
We sang for him to soothe his sleep.
Our sails of gold and white were lovely.
On tender winds we sailed away
to the land where all know kindness
and the fair can ne’er grow old.
We of the Fae have understanding
of the tales to still unfold.
In the fabled land of apples
Arthur sleeps the sleep of dreams.
We laid him in his Tomb to rest.
There, he awaits the day of waking,
in the land that’s ever blessed.
in every story book I read
the wise old witch was her
with cheeks like polished apples red
and apron freshly pressed
she smelled of wholesome new baked bread
pickles, jams and herbs
she kept a feathered fleet of hens
beside the well-worn lane
her hat pulled firmly on her head
she wandered down there day and night
in her fathers tattered coat
and big black rubber boots
the neighbours thought her rather odd
but I knew she was kind and good
she gave me Homers Odyssey
and well-worn fairy tales
when I was grown I went back there
to knock upon her door again, no-one came,
no neighbours knew her by her name
the world was not the same
no scent of lavender survives
in ancient drawers of cedar lined
the stove is cold, the windows barred
by swathes of ivy, deep entwined
the hens have gone, no cockerels crow
the hinge hangs rusted on her gate
that leads out to the muddied road
deep rutted by forgotten wheels
the rooks have flown the distant trees
no magpies squawks in mockery
the nettles grow in clusters wild
defense against a vanished child
The Dreaming Path 