At Night in the Bosque

A Touch of Faerie

The Faerie Night

Beneath Orion’s bright eyes,
beneath the ramping bear,
the bosque boasts a phantom host
with sword and spear.

The gray-sheen bushes shine
where the waning moon still gleams,
and the shadowed night burns silver-white
in mystic dreams.

The clustered kindred pause
like shadows of faerie folk:
the tumbled pear in the night–beware
of its daggered cloak!

And I–have I charm or spell?
For the desert sylvans wait,
yet their hosts stand deep where shadows creep
when the moon is late.

On the breeze their whispers fly;
I listen and glimpse and guess;
when moonlight peers through faerie spears,
I blink and bless.

Yet they’re round me one and all—
is the moon a wizard old?
For his magic grand makes an elven land.
Am I too bold?

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