In the patchwork grass
On the side of my yard
Fairies grow from the ground.
White-headed and infantile,
Sleepy-eyed and incomplete.
I pluck their stems and fashion them
Like crafting humans from clay,
Tying their soft pale bodies
To pliable grass blades
That resemble arms and legs.
They stretch, with their fragile new limbs,
Green and starched, as they yawn out
Of chalky dirt. They have naked wings
Invisible and secret, and veiny like hands. They flap
Like thought, changing hue like a mood ring. Fairies are
Earth-colored and sun-lit, frothy as air; they are as alien
As I am, as whimsy-bound as our dandelion brains.
The solid oaks are there to anchor us, their towering bark
Scratched with age and wind. But the fairies want
To know me, this clumsy cunning creature
Who shares their image, so flimsy and small.
They are fluttering and divine, and surer
Than robins or thrushes. They spring
From the soil’s bosom with a primordial knowledge, floating
In space and white sky.
They follow me, clutched in my fist
As their new legs swing
Worshiping the wind as something greater
Than creation, boundless and tender and forever.
I roll their waists in my fingertips, warming them
For the takeoff they so miss. Some lucky fuzz shakes free
Off their heads, children prematurely dancing
And exalting in the short freedom they are owed.
My brow is thoughtful, waiting for my wish.
That’s a fairy’s promise: its guarantee. Free it
From its earthy cage, and give it proper form;
It will scatter its magic onto the world,
With your thoughts enveloped, and your breath
A postage stamp. My lips pucker, and my eyes close
Tight. I do not open them until after the fairy’s brood
Is twirling free. Once you look behind the curtain,
Your wishes can no longer come true.
My desire drifts and spirals in feather-seeds
Singing through the air, wisps that are heavy
With things you can’t know how to say:
Things that children wish
And grown-ups must forget. The white sprouts swirl
In an eggshell sky, on wind and not wings.
Their mother gazes at them, sitting in my palm
As she waits to return to the solid ground
She has grown so attached to.
Bare-headed and assured, she soars
Back to the earth that shares her color.
I glance back, to see her land
Where I tossed her, on soft and scratchy dirt. She sits
Up, steady, her head now as weightless
As her children, her mind free and grounded
Enough to grasp
The bigness of bark, the odor
Of orange leaves, and the dew
That dots the grass like paint. She is wiser and
Luckier than me; she thinks that real is magic.
I can wait for the fairy’s offspring, until they’re ready
To reunite with their fuzz-stalked brethren
That they look nothing like. Someday they will burrow
Into the paper of dirt, and stretch, so their seeds can see
My eyes, that are blue and big and far away like stars.
But for right now, their destiny, to be tossed and shorn
In the funeral heap of their ancestors
Is even farther away than an earth-bound child
That needs their flying and falling to be real.
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