You were a miser’s child left on the doorstep in the brackish
air of midnight
made from fallen leaves and petals of an unopened rose.
Who fashioned your elven shoes, did I?
You were the child piped into life
by the man from Hamelin.
Plaintive notes of green
with waterfall,
a graceful air
you pursued
or were pursued by
all the way to the door in the rock
leaving you bereft, unstolen.
Whole years might pass searching for that place
meanwhile the words refuse their making
tea cloths hang over the stove and the tea grows colder.
Who fashioned your elven shoes, did I?
© Frances Spurrier
Picture 10635586, illustration by O Herrfurth, circa 1912, image copyright Mary Evans / Peter & Dawn Cope Collection
Frances Spurrier’s work has been widely published and anthologised, most recently in The Poet’s Quest for God (Eyewear, 2016). Publication credits for reviews, interviews and poetry include New English Review, Wales Arts Review, The Interpreter’s House, Tears in the Fence, Staple, South and Write out Loud. Her first poetry collection, The Pilgrim’s Trail, won the Cinnamon Press Collection Award and was published by them in 2014. She is currently working on a second collection. Her interests lie in the area of the connections between language, spirit and the environment. Frances blogs at https://volatilerune.blog