Happy Poetry Month!

Storytrance

Disbelief
dangles above our heads
while he stands
like a spectre
shrouded in smoke and
backlighted by the campfire.
Haints hover just outside
the ring of light
waiting to creep closer as the
fire wanes.
Dragonbreath
blows away the chill bumps
temporarily
but they return
when giants clamber through the woods
hehind us.
Faerie folk wish we'd leave
so they could claim our circle
and dance their rhyme
but we can't.
We're rooted to log seats
eyes glazed
jaws slack
hearts first slow
then race
all beating as one with the
cadence of the storyteller's voice as
tricksters and troubadours
strangers and waifs
strut among the fire's flame
and ride the backs of
donkeys and dragons.
Then he stops
sits
becomes human again
but another rises
and we're ready.
Once upon a time
somewhere
beyond the Silver Sea
beyond the Azure Forest
beyond the Glass Mountain
beyond the Straw Town
there was
and there was not...

Copyright 2001 by Sharon Kirk Clifton