Terrible Beauty!

Terrible Beauty
Robyn Jones ~ 2009

Intricate snowflakes, frozen in place...

balancing carefully...

not a breath of air...

to send them shimmering to the ground

like fairy dust.

Visible one moment and gone the next...

Every branch, every blade of grass, every seed,

for as far as the eye can see,

wearing a jacket of frosty snow..

cocooned against the elements, 

keeping alive a spark of life,

For springs first warm breath.

But sleeping for now..

Terrible in their frozen beauty,

As silent as death...as deep as a thought,

Dreaming silently under gray skies,

Shivering in anticiapation, 

for the seasons to change their fickle favors once again...

The Villagers of Stiltsville

The Villagers of Stiltsville

Perhaps you don’t know,

then, maybe you do,

about Stiltsville, the village,

(so strange but so true)

where people like we,

some tiny, some tall,

with jobs and kids

and clocks on the wall

keep an eye on the time.

For each evening at six,

they meet in the square

for the purpose of sticks,

tall stilts upon which

Stiltsvillians can strut

and be lifted above

those down in a rut:

the less and the least,

the Tribe of Too Smalls,

the not cools and have-nots

who want to be tall

but can’t, becuase

in the giving of sticks

their name was not called.

They didn’t get picked.

Yet still they come

when the villagers gather;

they press to the front

to see if they matter

to the clique of the cool,

the court of the high clout,

that decides who is special

and declares with a shout,

“You’re classy!” “You’re pretty!”

“You’re clever!” or “Funny!”

And bequeath a prize,

not of medals or money,

not a freshly baked pie

or a house someone built,

but the oddest of gifts—-

a gift of some stilts.

Moving up in their mission,

going higher they aim.

“Elevate your position”

is the name of the game.

The higher-ups of Stiltsville

(you know if you’ve been there)

make the biggest to-do

of the sweetness of thin air.

They relish the chance

on their higher apparatus

to strut on their stilts,

the ultimate status.

For isn’t life best

when viewed from the top?

Unless you stumble

and suddenly are not

so sure of your footing.

You tilt and then sway.

“Look out bel-o-o-o-w!”

and you fall straightaway

into the Too Smalls,

hoi polloi of the earth.

You land on your pride—-

oh boy, how it hurts

when the chic police,

in the jilt of all jilts

don’t offer to help

but instead take your stilts.

“who made you king?”

you start to complain

but then notice the hour

and forget your refrain

It’s almost six!

No time for chatter.

It’s back to the crowd

to see if you matter.