If you think you saw
fair Queen Flora at work when you were out
walking and watched
her create hedgerow beauty, better not tell.

And if when you sat
in a woodland dell you caught the shadow of
fairy-queen Fey do not
go away feeling folk will believe you were not
just asleep and
dreaming of days when to you they were real
for humans who,
grown and work-overloaded will not lose face
by saying that fairies
exist or confess nature itself is assisted by the
ethereal people who
work for hours at night to open more flowers.

Oh yes, they smile
kindly when children spin fairyland tales and
stifle a chuckle as
youngsters talk about spells old minds do not
brook what life once
opened to those with an unconfused outlook,
toy teddies and dolls
could talk and witches flew broomsticks back
when knights and dragons
rode on clouds every night to battle for hands
of sleeping princesses,
everyday happenings were magical then but
things altered when
fancy's soft wings became crushed under the
banns put on speaking
of fairyland and beautiful Fey was cast away
to die with childhood
in the pile of discarded other-worldly beliefs.

Life must become realistic
and dreams are best forgotten as nonsense,
then hearts will harden
but poets refuse to abandon the child locked
inside so their eyes
still see what is to adults forbidden, romance
does not leave them so
prison doors never close on their imaginings,
kings go on living
in Camelot lands and maidens get rescued in
good time for love as
above every cloud there still sits silver lining.

There are grown-ups
who unlock their minds to see other realms
and child-like believe
but unless you are a poet if you catch an elf
unfurling red petals
from too tight a rose-bud or you see a fairy
painting blue on white
woodland bells, well, you had better not tell.