Forbidden Love 

A fantasy dream of forests deep

With leaves of abundant green 

And sparkling rays of morning sun

Where fairies are dancing bright

Girded some with swords

While others with stars and flowers

On paths of moonbeams blue

And golden roads abide

And flitting snowflakes and summer rain

All dance about with harpers and songs

And the branches are winding

Tangled and smooth

Little trees and trees which are tall   

A fantasy dream of midnight sky

Someday, mother, I'll go North

I'll get me a pair

Of snowshoes

And skis

And that's the last

You'll see of me

I'll tell you what I'll do

When I get there

('Course I'll get there)

Do you think I'll run

Under that chilly

Midnight Sun?

Or maybe I'll just

Dig a tunnel

To Timbuktu

Or build an icy igloo

Maybe I'll find me

An Eskimo baby

Or a sled dog team

Perhaps I'll explore

And discover

A Northwest Pole

And be a Santa Claus

Something held her at the topmost stair,
another hand beside her own
and the ghostly wind through the night pulsed soft,
Was it music or did it moan?
She was drawn out toward the night
like a moth drawn to the light
To fly into the candle,
to fly into the flame,
is to be more than courage,
is to rise above shame
And the ellum awoke and shook themselves
and they wept for something that only they felt
And she nearly stepped out into the star-swirling dark

Flashbacks (2)

 Bridget stepped up to the scaffold.  She couldn’t even think straight.  She didn’t know why she was being executed.  Her head was down and her hair partly covered her face.  Out in the sea of faces before her, she saw Jordan and Kevin.  They didn’t even see her.  She looked farther.  There was her dad.  He was looking at her and laughing.  Fury surged up in her and she threw her hair back and looked him straight in the eyes.  He stopped laughing.  She looked back at her friends.  They were staring at her now in horror.  Then she woke up.

Smoothly, upon the wings of night eagles,
it rises,
and swiftly is carried aloft by the wind

white as stars,
it flutters
before being caught again
then, floating,
before the grey of a new dawn
the wind slows, then is gone
the eagles have vanished, for now

the moon is watching
pale, and marked,
just as this is,
this thing that gently brushes against wet grass
in front of your house

You come out in the morning,
the sun is yawning,
that early
there it is,

I had been alone on the island for four months. How did I know this? I’d marked the days on a palm tree near the shore where I first washed up. I remember that day. I was all alone for the first time in my life. Pirates had shot at our ship. And they had good aim, for they sank us quickly. I wonder why they sank us, instead of just boarding the ship and killing us all, or taking us prisoner and getting money. Maybe it was just Providence, so that I would survive.

“What’s going on?” Danielle has to raise her voice above the whisper we’ve been keeping our voices at in order to be heard above the ever-increasing ruckus. From the din, few words are distinct. I believe I hear “catch him, catch him!” But I am unsure. Could I doubt Korin? He’s a good man. On the other hand, Danielle didn’t even know him. Scelerisal could have instructed him to kill Danielle on the road and drag me back. There wouldn't be shouts to catch him if he had betrayed us. He must have been found out. Or not. My head swims with these thoughts and others as I answer my sister.

The glob of colors was growing, it started moving, swirling and twirling, and becoming larger, in just a few minutes it was bigger than I was, and then for a few amazing minutes, I was inside the glob, and then I was sitting quietly in a barstool at a kitchen counter, doing nothing of importance with an old pencil and a piece of scrap paper. I saw my mom and sister sitting in a living room; they too were doing nothing of importance, the whole place was quiet, you could have heard a small mouse scurry across the floor. It seemed as though I was in a small, pretty house.

I walk the same rooms,
drifting through the same world
even though in between
I don't know if I'm me
or if it's just a dream that looks like reality
or if reality's reality at all
who dreamed who, the girl or the king
who went through, my reflection or me
Who were you, what was the worth of your tears
I thought I knew the name,
like an echo from the years
Broken chains and promises crushed like petals underfoot
Things pass by so quick I don't get a second look
Mice in the cellar, mice under the bed