—for Connie Farrell, M.Ed.
after JM Barrie
They place a smooth plank of fallen wood between two living trees,
tuck it in the crook of the trunks to fashion a table for the potluck.
Now, the weather will cooperate and no one will want to go home.
Above, newborn fairies coo or cry, sounds distinct only to the birds
and to Connie, who knows an infant when she hears one.
The fairies have two wants: to satisfy hunger and curiosity.
Birds bring babies bugs. Tummies full, fairies peek through trees:
grass scattered with people who chatter through mouthfuls of potluck.
As gracious hosts mingle in the outdoor parlor of their home,
it seems they are a pair mated for life, unlike the flighty hummingbirds.
Connie cannot recall their first date, although they must’ve had one.
Surely there was a time before Chuck? It remains a curiosity.
She reflects, there had been Father and Mother, steady as the trees,
northern suit and southern belle, an abundance of food at the potluck.
Connie the artist, thread to needle, crafted a sampler of home,
pigment to paper, painted the since-felled tree by the hummingbirds:
Lucky for Posterity. Connie knows a work of art when she sees one.
As she knew she could raise ten children. But the body is a curiosity.
Birds take infant fairies underwing, mauve and white and blue in trees.
One never knows what Fate will bring to the potluck.
Chuck and the social worker, a human stork, in tandem, arrive home.
Foundling on her lap, heart flittering like wings of a hummingbird,
Connie falls in love for the third time: husband, son, this perfect wee one.
Why anyone would ever want to leave this nest evokes curiosity.
©2022 by Kathleen Morrow