10-01-2017, 04:35 AM
Faerie Gold
Their ground bones were the dust
that filled the pools of El Dorado.
For when the wee folk tired of spinning straw,
their shapes grew heavy as stone.
Some slept next to rivers: Tuapeka,
or the fork of the American near Coloma.
For years, they went unnoticed gray
as river rocks, or as mist stretching
beneath a long white cloud.
Their dreams seeped
into grasses, mingled
with horsemint and silver tussock,
and the water glittered
under the burnished gold of morning.
When the rivers dulled, their bodies sank
further into the earth. Descending
as did the fortune hunters. Who collected
the song from the sky into cages,
and hope became a melody
rarely played and seldom heard.
Their ground bones were the dust
that filled the pools of El Dorado.
For when the wee folk tired of spinning straw,
their shapes grew heavy as stone.
Some slept next to rivers: Tuapeka,
or the fork of the American near Coloma.
For years, they went unnoticed gray
as river rocks, or as mist stretching
beneath a long white cloud.
Their dreams seeped
into grasses, mingled
with horsemint and silver tussock,
and the water glittered
under the burnished gold of morning.
When the rivers dulled, their bodies sank
further into the earth. Descending
as did the fortune hunters. Who collected
the song from the sky into cages,
and hope became a melody
rarely played and seldom heard.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson