WONDER

THE AUTUMN WITCHING HILL

August 17, 2021 /
THE AUTUMN WITCHING HILL

 

Just crowned, her first day as queen.

They bow to her.

 

With bare feet and silk gown staining,

she flees faraway 

to where untamed roots give rise

to impossible beauties.

 

She requests the counsel she needs.  

Tinder tangles into an ordinary brass key

that she swallows.

It tastes of smoldering seeds.

 

With no court watching

she drinks slanted sunlight,

gilded sky,

burnished hills,

the goddess tea of crisp gold grass.  

 

Her confusion ebbs.

 

Bent by heavenly gusts

she bows

to a pocket of slight stems

crowned by florid stars. She listens.

She leaps and picks.

 

Her choice:

Wind in trees

above fame and jewels,

birdspeech over wished-for youth.

 

Her people are best served

by what is real.

This, she decides, is her creative will.  

Yet why make proclamation

when her woman’s nature is to invoke?

 

Inspiration is her way.

 

The wind blows and takes her hair,

she turns to autumn copper.

The earth takes and decomposes her name.

Her soul turns to soil, the two indistinguishable.

 

Now she knows.

She is sunbeam much more than she is queen.

Now she chooses—

 

Not to be revered royalty

but to be witched and revere.

 

This poem is inspired by the Edmund Dulac art seen here, which I believe is an illustration for Beauty And The Beast. I made my own meaning of it. 

I hope you felt a sense of wonder in the reading of this poem. If you’d like to receive inspiration for wonder in your email about once a month, I’d love to have you, please SUBSCRIBE. 

You can leave a comment below on this poem; it’s wonderful to hear what you thought or felt upon reading my writing! Thank you ever so much.

~Cricket

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