The Dessert

Beyond the edge of waking dreams,

Where silver rivers churn to cream,

There lies an orchard, mossed and old,

With globes of pear-enchanted gold.

And creeping through the twilight briars,

The deep, star-purple blackberry fires.

I plucked them in the velvet haze

Of half-remembered childhood days,

When time was made of amber glass,

And faeries danced upon the grass.

The autumn wind began to sigh,

And whispered of a golden pie.

Into a dish of ancient clay,

We laid the harvest of the day—

The pears like moons of honeyed glass,

The berries dark as midnight mass.

We spun a web of flour and spice,

Chanted twice, and then thrice.

Then carried to the hearth of stone,

Where magic lived and breathed alone,

Beneath the ash of dragon-fire,

It baked to sweet, crumb-crusted choir.

A crackling roof of golden oats,

Where phantom cinnamon still floats.

Now when the shadows softly fall,

And memory knocks upon the wall,

I taste that crust of star-spun air,

The warm, wild heart of pear and pear—

And for a heartbeat, time stands still,

Upon the rim of Faerie Hill.