It isn’t Baby Bear or Mama Bear or Papa Bear
we need to fear. Not the dark wood,
the candy cottage, nor even the Big Bad Wolf.
Not the green-skinned witch stirring incantations
in the tallest tower, but the unknown realm
this gnarled old road is twisting us toward.
Some say there are dark times ahead,
and I don’t doubt it. But even the oldest stories
are shaped to prepare us for danger. I believe
there is a place where outside and inside meet—
our face in a pond, the world our reflection.
Each soul a strange brew of darkness and light.
Cream stirred into coffee, pink dusk
swiveling day into night.
For every child baked in a brick oven
there is another climbing an impossible beanstalk
into sky. You never know what vistas a higher view
might offer. Yes, these terrors are real.
The question we need to ask,
What kind of story do we want to tell?
.
Al Fournier
Picture Rupert Loydell
.