Poem: “Where Have all the Fairies Gone?”
Where Have all the Fairies Gone?
What happens:
When the last baby laughs, and
No more fairies fly forth from dandelion fluff
Born on the breeze of an infant’s giggle?
When little girls no longer twirl
In pink tulle around the foyer?
Can I still dream of carefree days
Dissolved into the misery of life?
Will lightening bugs fail to flash
As adults serenely sip iced tea
In the silence of Summer stillness?
Can joy exist apart from dress ups, and mess ups
And spilled milk, and clean ups
And children laughing in a pool?
Which bar on a corner, or secret internet site
Competes with dads and sons, or daughters,
Tossing bags across a span into a waiting hole?
Do malted hops and distilled corn beat that?
How can an evening on the town trump
A toddler on his knees, blessing himself
Like his siblings do?
Fumbling fingers drag across his chest
In imitation of a mysterious family ritual.
Pretend we’re children again, for a moment,
For once we were. We lived it.
Constructing Lincoln Log jails for fairies turned dark.
When we understood that darkness falls,
And ran for jars in which to capture
Fairy Light luminaries dancing in the yard.
…Pretend is yesterday, for shame!
Now they’re learned and wise.
Dandelion seeds disperse in the wind. That’s all.
A baby laughs?
Ha! Never heard it in the Ivory Tower,
Where power reigns supreme,
Where mothers exist as incubators
Propagating a creature with no meaning or purpose,
Outside the “experience”, yet
“Experience” delegated to a sincere “mother figure”,
never-the-less…
If Fairy Dew moistened your cheek
Would you pause and wonder where a baby cried?
Could you cry tears of loneliness for the children
Who are not?
Stacy Peterson
August 2013
