National Poetry Month Day Nineteen

word group: attend--nurture--bowl--cup

AVEDON

The Queen of Avedon
attended the birth
and was surprised
to see a faerie emerge--
tiny, delicate
with wings like lace.
As the mother slept
the Queen took the fairy child,
suckled and nurtured her
and kept her in a cave
in the dark woods
to raise as her own.
At the age of one
the faerie child fit in a teacup.
At five in a wooden bowl
carved of beech wood
and used for collecting
exotic herbs.
When the faerie child
was sixteen
her true mother
came upon her in the woods
and recognized the faerie
as the baby that disappeared
from the palace--
the baby whose mother
had searched for her
for sixteen years.
She picked her up
no bigger than a chipmunk
and carried her home
in the perfect bowl
of her trembling hands.

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