a fairy tale

christmastime hovers in a space between worlds. the earthly world gets described by gifts and decorated trees, food, drink, and loving company. the fairy world gets described by the otherness of imagining, of worlds long passed and yet entirely present. ideas that dance in the flames of candles and fires.

wishes that glisten like tinsel and glass.

when the gentle season approaches, i find myself drawn irrevocably to the spaces in-between here and there:

the magical interstice of what is above and below.

on winter nights beside the nursery fire

we read the fairy tale, while glowing coals

builded its pictures.

alfred provis

there before our eyes

we saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone

uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung

with pendent stalactites like frozen vines;

the great hall and round table at winchester castle

and all along the walls at intervals,

curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed,

and ramped and were confined, and clustered leaves

divided where there peered a laughing face.

the foliage seemed to rustle in the wind,

a silent murmur, carved in still, gray stone.

maronski

high pointed windows pierced the southern wall

whence proud escutcheons flung prismatic fires

to stain the tessellated marble floor

with pools of red, and quivering green, and blue . . .

excerpted from "a fairy tale" by amy lowell