Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie

A catastrophe of old goslings
Came sauntering on by
Hunting perhaps some pumpkin
Or, maybe yet, a little pecan pie

A horrendous howl of honking
Sliced thru the early morning’s fog
Perturbing the pigs and piglets
Of our farmers: Mr. and Mrs. B. Hogg

Seems our geese were quite giddy
Having been passed over for the block;
So, Thanksgiving would could be grand
For our fancy pastry-chasing flock

Peering perkily from yon copse,
Sally Gossamer Wingstep did risk a look
At the scene of gosling and farm
That rested askew beside the country brook

The winds nappered around from the North
Painting trees and cheeks in orange and red;
Our woodland fairie was on a mission
Having come in place of her ill cousin instead

Beyond the span of the Hoggs’ Farm
A fig tree grew splendid, round, and high
With just the right, rich and sweet fruit
To go in the Queen’s Holiday Figgerry Pie

Sally soared high up the loaded boughs
Selecting the most succulent figs to bag;
Thence to return to the Queen’s Kitchen—
Now weighed sore down, causing her flight to badly sag!

Overloaded Sally collapsed just past the copse;
The goslings saw, then quick-wobbled over to assist;
Flapping wings, cheery honking, and madness
Cut thru the thick new holiday’s swirling mist

Fairie and catastrophe arrived in a tumble;
Hooray, the figs to cook were delivered!
A freshened wind rolled thru the trees
Sending leaves reddening and beshivered

Sally asked how could she ever thank them
As they’d helped finish her mission on the fly—
And there on the morrow, our heroic of goslings
Munched on some of her Majesty’s Best Pumpkin Pie!

Happy Thanksgiving! Don’t forget to have some pie!

Advertisement

Hope and Future and Chance

The pain of his past rested on the front of his eyes,
Memory tempted then mocked and let loose in droplets.
Where now can pale usefulness express its wont?
How will tomorrow find reason inside old couplets?

Full-time folly found rest upon the other slack shoulder,
And swirling, the promise and the lie presented opportunely;
Yet a path coursed beyond the copse, bidding one to follow;
New memory scorned to breach history, to grow jejunely.

An old minstrel parsed a chord, and improved;
The song of song that choirs failed yet chimed aloud;
While pan wrens sauntered and soared ever above,
Dodging the eagles, falling, sprinting to eclipse yon cloud.

Tears will dry with hope and future and chance rekindled;
Goats may prance upon thatched roofs, high and mighty,
But the parson-chaplain rises early to great the new day,
And pale usefulness finds expression, keen and rightly.

What would Ferena Ashbury say on National Poem Day?

It was one of those determined, inquisitive, tussle-headed boys;
Should she hazard a kiss to find out what he knows?
Dropping down from the Queen’s Tree on Honeysuckle Ridge
Sally Gossamer Wingstep bussed him one right on the nose!
First crinkled into asterisks, then the eye lids slid wide open.
The boy got up from his bedroom willow copse,
While Sally regarded safely from behind a toadstool—
A lad all alone out here? Where’s his Pops?
A half-walk whistle slung low caught her sharp ear:
Sally saw Evelyn over by the ‘Herroyalship’s Tree’.
Sally whipped over to her cousin’s hideaway.
Alright, so now we caught-lost number three.
Evelyn Eagle Wingtip was shaking like a leaf;
“What’s ever is the matter, Eve?
Why are you in such so evident grief?”
“Oh Sally, that boy chased me all morn.
He followed me into our fairie dome;
Now he is oh, so, so lost
And cannot find his way home.”
Sally then thunk some deep thoughts—
Then, smiling, beamed, “Not to worry!
We’ll just call upon our own sage fairie
And spin a spell taught by our Ferena Ashbury!”
Arm and wingarm together they spun
Ascatterin’ fairy dust and achanting as one:

“Take us where the willows glow,
Away from thy Darkness know.”

The boy wheeled and then headed back towards camp
Missing the fairies shrieking glee of joy.
Twas an older spell for the fairly Lost:
Kitten, pony, or overly-determined little boy.
Sally and Eve flew off, soaring on up high
Back to their own warm abodes in Fairie Dome;
Happy the boy was headed in the right way,
And they too were safe, aheaded home.

–thanks to Lillian Patricia Perkins Fedoroff for loaning me Ferena Ashbury
(and a line or two) as a character for this poem for National Poem Day 2015