The Dessert

Upon the mossy, emerald floor,

Where ancient roots remember lore,

Beneath the canopy’s green keep,

The forest wakes from enchanted sleep.

Here magic brews in iron mold,

Turned to a treasureed, crimson gold.

The brambles wept a jewel tear,

To crown the closing of the year—

Dark blackberries, deep as midnight skies,

And rubies plucked from dragon eyes.

I gathered them in twilight’s haze,

Remembering forgotten days,

When time stood still in fairyland,

And wonder held the shifting sand.

Now cast within a vessel deep,

Where velvet shadows softly creep,

The wild berries bubble, burst, and bleed,

To satisfy a phantom need.

A blanket spins of oats and brown,

Like stardust sifted falling down,

With butter churned from elfen dew,

And crystal sugar, sweet and true.

It bakes within a hearth of stone,

Where winter winds have ceased to moan.

The oven breathes a spell of old:

Of hearth-lit eves and forest gold,

Of summers lost to turning spheres,

And ghosts of unforgotten years.

A golden crumble, crisp and sweet,

A memory fit for magic feet.

One steaming spoon, and lo, I fly

Back to the kingdom in the sky—

Where childhood dreams and berries blend,

In tales that never reach an end.