We know the story. The children Are lost in the deep forest -- Though it is the same forest In which we all are born. But somehow it has changed: A new kind of darkness, Or something they never noticed, Has colored the pines and the larches. And now appears the Bird, (Bird of a strange dreaming) To lead them, as tales foretold, Over the little streams Into the garden of order Where trees no longer menaced, And a little house was protected Inside its candy fences. And all seemed perfectly proper: The little house was covered with barbwire and marzipan; And the Witch was there; and the Oven. Perhaps they never noticed -- After all that disorder Of being lost -- that they'd come To the Place named in the stories. Perhaps there was even peace -- A little -- after disorder, Before they awoke into A dream of deeper horror. And now the Bird will never Take them across the river (Though they knew how to walk on water). They become part of the weather. They have become the Ascensions. When we lift up our eyes, In any light, we see them: Darkening all our skies. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MATER IN EXTREMIS by JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER BEFORE THE BIRTH OF ONE OF HER CHILDREN by ANNE BRADSTREET EPIGRAM: TO FOOL, OR KNAVE by BEN JONSON SEADRIFT by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH ON LYDIA DISTRACTED; A SONNET by PHILIP AYRES PRINCE ADEB by GEORGE HENRY BOKER |