The Dessert

Beyond the map of waking days,

Where childhood’s golden lanterns blaze,

There stands a cottage built of spice,

Suspended deep in crystal ice.

And in its heart, an ancient spell

Begins to work within the shell.

The autumn orchard shed its tears,

To drown the weight of passing years,

And culls from branches, heavy-bowed,

The reddest apples from the cloud.

They sit within a silver urn,

Where wizard-flames forever burn.

Now watch the alchemy of heat:

The skin gives way, a parting sweet,

Release the amber, weeping juice

Of captive memories set loose.

A fragrant mist begins to rise,

Like twilight in enchanted skies.

The cinnamon, a rust-red dust,

Falls softly as a velvet crust,

Spun from the bark of wishing trees

That whisper secrets to the breeze.

It coats each wedge in copper fire,

A soaring hymn of hearth-desire.

Oh, magic stew of yester-year!

It brings the phantom voices near—

Of hands that baked in winters past,

In spells too delicate to last.

The steam ascends in phantom shapes,

Of velvet hills and frosted grapes.

A bite is time reversed again;

The bitter frost, the phantom pain,

Dissolve in pools of glowing spice,

Beneath the spell of paradise.

The kitchen fades, the shadows part,

And warmth reclaims the lonely heart.