Night Garden Page 2.....

Fods, long day. I am truly very tired. I was wondering on the way home from Dog School, what I could possibly write about that would be as fun as, Mr Marrot, Mandcake, Cuthulu Dude, and wasn't coming up with anything. (He's currently sitting in the fridge chilling out, since half the vote seems to be going for burying him so the Garden Gnomes can wonder, and half of the vote for sending him to Cinnamon to Disapprove of.)

Then, like a gift, for a worn out Assistanting-French-learning-dog-agility-girl, I find Page Two of the Night Garden Project! A poem by Jess.

It deserves it's own entry. I am accompanying it with a picture of Venus, because I like it, it's spooky, it's my blog and I can do what I like, but mostly because it is getting WAY late and at least this way I can point out to her when I do get home, that I was not ignoring her...

Love and Night Gardens,
Lorraine




Tinkerbell and the Butterfly Bush
(for Audrey)


It isn't true that Tinkerbell
came into our back yard at night,

to buzz around in sunny moon-
light and wait till my teeth fell out,

so she could carve a new tea set.
(Enamel's stronger than ox-bone,

and Tinkerbells pay well.) But I
sat in the hall window seat, fists

over my ears (to keep out bats),
my lost teeth tucked into my palm.

Our Black Knight bush stood tall enough
to brush the sill, and butterflies

clung high to its blue-velvet blooms,
so near to the pane you could see

their needle-noses poke into
each tiny trumpet. I thought Tink

might land there and wait, hanging on
by her little bare feet and hands,

just like a butterfly-- and I
swear the branch moved, though no breeze blew

as I pressed my nose to the glass.
It dipped beneath the sill and up:

a hundred eyes, each a tiny
orange flame, winked at me through the pane.

I didn't know that the Black Knight
kept all her eyes open at night.

It seemed we shared a great secret.
I'm loathe to break her trust. But you

ought to know, and feel unafraid,
when Tinkerbell fails to appear--

or when something stirs in the night
where a butterfly should have been.

2008 by Jess Mersky