flax-golden

accidental poetry

It’s the easiest way to compose a poem, he tells me.

I don’t believe him, but I nod in what I hope is a thoughtful-looking way as he throws the letters up into the air. I make a silent mental note that he used the word compose and not write.

We both watch as the letters cascade to the ground in random patterns: a W overlapping an R, a zig-zag that could be a Z or a sideways N.

An O joins an M for a momentary meditation before they separate again.

Once the letters settle they’re all nonsense and I can’t find any proper words.

I try to tell him that I’m still not sure I understand how it’s supposed to work but he shushes me, already scribbling in his notebook.

I stare at the pile of letters, searching for words though there aren’t nearly enough vowels.

There’s a B next to an R with a Y that reminds me of a girl I once knew named Briony who laced her shoes backwards with the bows near the toes.

And now I think I get it.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

the storied pasts of carousel ponies

Once they were real ponies, because that’s how such stories go.

(Before that they were real boys, of course. Princes and paupers and a solitary thief, each with their own individual pre-pony story.)

It was a curse of some sort, though none of them would tell the same tale now were they able to speak of it. They were frozen mid-gallop and later, much later, there was music and lights and the delighted laughs and squeals of children.

It wasn’t so bad, as curses go.

Quite a few of them found it rather fun, unless the children kicked too hard. And even the grumpiest pony agreed that the feel of wind as they spun was decadent and wild, reminiscent of the real-pony days.

But the spinning and the lights and the music all ceased long ago, replaced by stillness and slowly fading paint.

Sometimes they hum tunes from various past lives softly to themselves as they wait for their next story.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

visualization tools for dreamtime adventures

I’m not that good at visualizing.

I practiced constantly but I only managed to master everyday objects. Apples, pens, coffee cups. Not particularly inspiring dream fodder.

No matter how I tried I couldn’t capture anything fantastical that didn’t feel fragile and thin and fleeting. But I knew I must be doing something right, what with the crispness of the dream-apples and the perfect level of sweetness in my dream coffee.

So I found more adventurous objects to fill my everydays, though it required creative shopping.

I found the ship in an antique shop.

I studied the masts and the rigging and the curve of the bow, slowly learning every detail.

Now I can sail the seas in my dreams.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

the short yet joyful lives of soap bubbles

The first to arrive is confused but only for a moment before a companion appears.

Look! the first bubble says to the second, and as more bubbles join them the word is repeated and echoed by bubble after bubble. Look, look!

They tumble upward and dance on breezes, giddily spinning as they stare at the strange new world they have been blown into.

Look! they say to their fellow bubbles, sometimes so enthusiastically that they bump into each other and cling and spin together.

They peer in windows and exclaim at the contents.

They ask questions about how and why but the answers seem unimportant.

People smile at them and they smile in return, giddy for having made people smile by simply existing.

When some bubbles begin to pop, the others gasp and sigh and rush to share their thoughts and observations with their remaining friends.

And when only a solitary bubble is left with no one else to talk to it looks around and around at the sky and the ground and everything in between in blissful silence until it too explodes with joy.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

always darjeeling

It’s not that good a trick, really.

There are ooohs and aaahhs when I show someone who hasn’t seen it before, but only the first time.

After the second time they complain that I can’t do it with anything else.

Like it’s not that impressive to draw something in chalk and have it become real once the drawing is complete since I can only do it with teacups.

Even though the teacups materialize with actual tea inside.

But the tea will only be hot if I draw the steam, and I have to draw lots of it in order to obtain proper tea-drinking temperature.

I usually don’t drink it, anyway.

It’s never sweetened, even if I draw sugar cubes.

And it’s always Darjeeling.

No matter how much I wish for Earl Grey.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

an impromptu ceremony to restore the sun

We were sick of the winter and we wanted to get the sun back.

We yelled for it but it couldn’t hear us.

We thought maybe it would be able to see us through the clouds if everything wasn’t so grey so we got a lot of paint.  We argued about colors the sun would like but we settled on the brightest, warmest ones that looked summer-hot and sunshine-y.

We put all the bright warm colors in buckets and dragged the buckets out to the backyard. We had to take each color bucket one at a time because they were heavy and we both agreed that the yellows were the heaviest but we couldn’t figure out why.

We painted the house and the trees and the dry grass. We dipped our feet in the heavy yellows and our braids in orange and peach and mango and when we were all covered in sunshine colors we did a sunshine dance and tried to get the cat to dance with us and he didn’t want to but we got him nice and sunshine-y, too.

After the dancing we were tired and it was nighttime and the sun probably couldn’t see us anymore even through the clouds so we went to bed.

In the morning the sun was out and all the paint was gone.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.