Wood Sprites
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Brian Froud
Please visit his website to purchase his books and products by clicking on his
name.
It is twilight and the sun is slipping
into its nightdress,
yawning across these woods.
Wood Sprites whispering
we are the beings of lightness.
Whippoorwills answering yes,
but, we see you, hear you
none the less.
They who are like Feathers,
barely there yet,
revealed within the contours
of the fading, waning light,
Etched and enfolded
in the advancing night ...
Wood Sprites!
Shapes Half cast in shadow and shade,
where they hide, reside all day.
Wrapped in the amber, sun burnt, haze.
They leap to life, uncoiling from malaise
to frantic and amazing
and are in turn amazed.
Autumn their harvest time,
ritual time ...
The Solstice Gathering.
These sprightly folks,
faces with many moods,
smatterings of smirk and whiles,
half smiles
and crinkly, wrinkly laugh lines,
crows feet.
HA, HA, HA ... hilarious,
laughter their favorite treat.
Bitter sweet.
They sigh and repeat their giggles,
chuckling too.
We sees you all, we teases you all,
in our own kind of wood honed voodoo.
Wood sprites slumber in morning light
nodding in and out, only half awake.
Lost in their own daydreams and disillusions,
the stories they star in and create.
Vague by day, defined by night.
They come alive to all their senses
at this hour,
Twilight.
The blue is deepening,
streaking across the heavens,
azure fading into dusk.
The breeze has stopped playing hide and seek
and has hushed and calmed itself.
It stops to ask us if we are sleepy,
waiting for its arms to rock us.
Or does it mock us,
for our need to rest, to dream?
Woodland critters no longer scampering,
hurrying on.
They have dragged weary feet along
looking for a place to night time nap.
Crawling into tree trunks, branches, caves,
Mother Nature's lap.
Crickets are heard to begin their song
and the owl has settled on his favorite
branch.
Awaiting the Moon's sweet providence,
given half a chance they would sing
their song
acapela all night long just for him.
Ah! But, wait, listen harder,
hear!
See, looking over there,
it begins.
It is the Dance of Twilight and her spirits.
Some chanting, some whistling.
Their own music
made in their own sacred way.
A mix of what they know
and what they'd like to say.
The Wood Sprites are coming,
slipping out from their branches,
limbs, over their bogs,
stepping out of their logs,
homes of leaves and vines and twigs.
Magic of the Sigs and Figs.
Mischievous,
mirthful
merriment on their minds
but walking that ever constant line
between frolic and mean.
These sprites cross back and forth
and fall sometimes, somewhere,
some place in between.
Yes, that is who they are too,
shades of
what they might have been.
Lookout ye' Trolls for these creatures
and the Sigs among them.
They are the designated ones
the rock throwers, bashers,
face smashers
of the Trolls.
Trolls who bring mayhem and madness
to the woods, the marshes
the mangled and the marred,
the undertow, the crow.
It is the Solstice Eve,
Halloween
and all who believe
are here gathering around the outer banks,
amidst the ranks of the mysterious
and the observer.
Where Pumpkin smashing is about to begin
everyone tastes its squish and squash.
Innards gobbled up and down,
drinking droughts
of sap and maple syrup too.
Mugs of amber rich and brown
rolled up pancakes dipped
in its goodness for dessert.
They dance in wild abandonment.
Spilling their gooey cups, as they prance to
The Solstice Twilight Dance.
The Figs are sent to find the Trolls
who are to be punished for
carving up the trees,
their spirits, their wood sprites
and stealing souls,
For all these offenses they will pay
the Toll of the Troll
the groans and grunts of they.
Soon to be faceless on this day.
Hallowed EVE!
Figs drag trolls kicking,
screaming to the circle of stones.
Doom and gloom.
The Sigs make ready to smash their faces
into the jagged rocks.
Crushing them then to pumpkin pulp,
mash.
Trollses with curling frenetic toeses.
They rise up screaming
"we gots no faces.
We's no longer of the trollkin races."
And burying their heads in their hands
they stumble out of the circle.
No more big eyes to stare and gap
as they rip and tear at startled prey
their hands to busy holding heads
unable to see forever blind.
They once unkind, now and of that kind
dwell within their own hell, troll agony.
A nightmare no more faces
just pumpkin pulp traces.
Wood sprites always win in the end
Trolls must learn the hard way
to stay out of their way
and
to never hurt the trees or woods
if they want to live happily if but they could.
But such is there lot to stupidly do,
what troll hearts do
until the Wood sprites come
and they to do
what wood sprites do
on Solstice Eve
punish the defilers of the woods and trees.
Ravens fly, crows do too,
crowing, baying
with the banshees at the moon.
The crickets tune drowns in every ones chants.
Goblins come to watch too
and join the dance.
Wood Sprites at the height
and depth of both their sides
both light and dark.
Merry, mean,
and all that rests just somewhere
out of reach and in between.
Wood sprites in their ritual time.
Twilight Dance,
Solstice Eve.
Believe!
Halloween!
By LaMythica
March 29, 2000
The beautiful
Melody on this page is "Deep
Blue" by
John Engelmann
Click on John's name
above to hear more of his compositions.
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