In our Ivy Tower

In our Ivy Tower
under the bower
of tree shade

wobbly wooden steps crumble
dissolve into earth

In our Ivy Tower
Barbara reads and reads and reads
while I wander

and the fairies laugh
for they catch her glance

they catch her eyes blinking
at my back

they see her shake her head
and her silly thoughts

They know her library
and how to turn the page

they know our sorrows too
and how to turn the page

In our Ivy Tower
Barbara reads and reads and reads
as the ivy grows and grows and grows...

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 28

....Golden Days

Golden Days
With a golden dog

And I tried to catch the light
Making you a lion
Tried to catch the moment
We shift into beyond

That heart beat
where myth ignites
into synthesis

And I hold my breath to be
As time curls into me

Every golden charm- all wealth
Unearthed- pours into a pause

Every glimmer in the kingdom
And every scratch on the cave wall
Every stone shaped to be something more
than mere mass

We breed thoughts
Build roads
Make museums
Name names
and claim sovereignty

But we only own our own hearts and minds
Our own imaginative ability to see and feel
And believe in something-
Or someone

Our own ability to love
Or not

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 27

Come to the quiet

Come to the quiet
of our garden

the delight
of our love

(& labor)

Come to the quiet
where fantasy might call

trumpeting unexpectedly

the umbra steed unbridled

every sound might be song

.... every leaf a wing....

Every color a reminder
of what we have known

good times and bad blurred
into one glorious gallop

from one hue to another
each in turn
an eternity

to explore
inside out
and bloom

blending and bending every rule
as the breeze plays thoughts

and sunshine shimmers- glows
in greens and golds

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 26

Our American Goldfinch

His bold bright being
plunges past
swoops up
veers
swoops down
every which way...

A to B involves
all the rest of the alphabet
in the way they fly

Flickering

and the way they feed
upside down

Twittering

A thistle fed twinkle
doing all that Sun
and Stars can't do

Every orbit
a reason to reinvent
direction

and a way to polish sparkle
as another bright glint
lightly lands

drinks in glimmerings
and shimmerings
and song

every echo
of what might be

Our American Goldfinch

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 25

A Small White Song Bird

I dreamed of a bird
a small white song bird
Flittering through the trees
and while I watched entranced...

Flittering all through the forest
and then Flittering out of the forest...
...through the gardens...
Flittering eventually right to me
slipstreaming in through
a small, just barely open window-

A square window
my portal
What is this house
this place of creaking boards and books
This construction where sand becomes glass
and cotton becomes clothing...

Fluttering right inside
Fluttering down
to land on my
instinctively
upturned hand
like water cupped

The small white song bird
stood still on my open palm
connected to my flesh
and all my feelings

momentarily

his delicate twig feet
lightly rooted in my hand
his voice and wings at rest
weightless and white
unlike any song bird I have ever seen
or heard
he looked up into me
beseeching
or searching
or simply seeing
I do not know

but i felt blessed
looking back

for one perfect moment

And then the small white song bird
fluttered up
and away
slipstreaming
out the open window
back from where he came...

His flight and song resumed
Flittering all through the trees

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 24

Quiver and trill

Bird song
and stirrings...

tree top branches
reaching as far as earth
can go

Perch
where my eye lifts
in our garden

Quiver and trill

Tell
a story-
red apples ripening
in the orchard
on a summer's day

Tell
a story-
snap dragons blooming

Tell a
Tell a story-
and off he flies....

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 23

Water Rills

The castle keep
fills with flowerings

water rills
and falls

cupped by sea shells
to splash

in dreams
splurge
in imaginings

stirred
by the slightest touch

the smallest hint
the gentlest voice

the serendipity
of our time
our touch
our being

disclosed

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 22

A Fairy Garden Grows

Once upon a time
when the Admiral's
granddaughter
was a little girl
the Admiral's widow
took her to visit
an elderly friend.

In a room full
of frail antiques
the elderly friend
brought forth
a box filled with
precious treasure
and one by one
told stories
of where each
treasure was found

All around the world
(with no children)
she roamed various beaches-
each day a careful search
happily collecting
intriguing sea shells
(and with no children)
and her own death near
the shells now had no where to go

The Admiral's granddaughter listened
rapt- enchanted- and stunned
when bequeathed right there and then
... the entire bounty

Decades later in what
was once forest
then field
then lawn
a fairy garden grows

and now an arc of random sea shells
tumbles- oceans of memories
warm and cold
intermingle
making new stories
out of old.

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 21

Our Hydrangea

Our Hydrangea
decides for itself

which blue to be
or not

reaching through pinks
into purples

one growing season
bringing many hues
and moods, pinks
into purples
and purples
into pink

each year the one shrub
getting wider and wilder

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 20

Cucumber Vines

He makes stars sparkle
from nothingness
takes bare earth
scratches it
seeds it

imagines what might be
and weeds out what shouldn't.

He lures cucumber vines up lattices
and carefully crafted ladders
of wood and string
counts blooms
and thanks the bees he sees

thanks the be's for pollination.

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 19

Yesterday's storms

Yesterday's storms
brought the red tailed hawk
to our trees

Swooping in low
right over head

Gusting in
on the winds

of a thundercloud

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 18

The Conodoquinet Creek

The Conodoquinet Creek
"winding stream"
"for a long way nothing but bends"

cradles the land
where we live

defines the edge
of our neighboorhood
on all three sides

brings birds up
from the Susquehanna
where egrets nest

Osprey and eagles
come too

gracing the creek
feathering the view

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 17

Tightly looping meanders of Conodoguinet Creek in eastern Cumberland County.


Orr's Covered Bridge spanned Conodoguinet Creek for many years

Poem in a poem

A little brown wren
has come to warble
nesting
by my window

becoming my view

taking a fancy
to our fancy bird house
dangling from the eave.

A little brown wren
has come to catch my eye
as she darts in
flits out

and about

Two of them take turns
entertaining me

Poem in a poem:

....Scissors

Don't try
To lip read birds

For the songs twittered
are tied to air
not beak

the composition heard
of heaven
Not earth

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 16

Tiger Lily

The Tiger Lilies
stand guard

roaring
bright
bold

Each as if a dragon
left his breath

to bloom with warning
as summer turns hot

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 15

....What is Time (from a fairy garden)

What is time
but a way
to define
what might be

Free choice in every twitch
and every twine

Free choice in where to hid
and what to watch

Where to turn ones head
or open one's heart

Free choice in perceiving gold
in yellow flowers

and a wealth of possibility
in every shape
twinkling

every pattern plotting
a celestial course
as heaven comes down in the everyday

and we drink the rain
in a cucumber
drink the cloud shapes dreamed last week
as heaven comes down in the everyday

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 14

A Fairy Harp

The Spider Web

A fairy harp
strung through the herbs
and summer blooms
out front

a fairy harp
shimmering

plucked
string by string
weaving song

fairies know
the music of the night

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 13

Viewed from the Fairy Garden

Viewed from the Fairy Garden

The Morning Glories have begun!

Lattices of light
reach down
absorbing leaf green

blending

lending hues and height

infusing the bluest of blue
the purest of pure
the deepest of dew
into

early morning bloom

with the promise of more and more and more...

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 12

The Garden Fairies

They are everywhere you know-
the Garden Fairies

Bits of dreams snagged
shaped
given wings and nice faces
blinking eyes
and pretty dresses

to go with the garden and woods

to charm and beguile
to hold onto hope knowing
that beauty is in every bloom
and breeze....
right now
bringing flavors of gardens
to brew

to charm and beguile

& they simply can't be contained.

The Garden Fairies frolic
slip past every wall
elude every boundary
flit through every barricade

they own air and space and time
and even punctuation

making moments longer
when we want to pause

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 11

Welcome is Home

Welcome
is home

where one may sit
sip tea

welcome is home
where years of love

built sanctuary
years of love

arranged every chair
years of love

shaped me.

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 10

The Gardener

The Fairies
watch Him work

He knows knots
and earth
and sky
and seedlings
and exactly how to help a vine climb
with a trellis made of twine

He knows that Morning Glories like full sun

....and that his wife likes Morning Glories

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 9

One White Egret

Occasionally
a White Egret
graces our yard

swoops in all shadow
and prehistoric form

never ever landing
near the Fairy Garden

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 8

In May... Clematis

In May, Climatis helps cloak the Fairy Garden

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 7

...Maybe

Dogs can not be trained
not to pester fairies

And fairies can not be trained
not to pester dogs

But an airy fence
can define a fairy haven

the way "quotes"
define who says what where.

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 6

Garden Rock: "Love is found where it is shown"

Garden Rock: "Love is found where it is shown"

They like to hid
behind things

and to have hints

of what they want us
to remember most

words are their whim
the way they dance

through thoughts
how they find warmth and glow

and places to pose
places to pirouette

places to tuck secrets
places to be safe

places to simply be

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 5

Our Rose of Sharon

Our Rose of Sharon
trumpets summer fairies in

Come hither
All you things of the air

Come hither
We have new bloom

Come hither
To hear bird song

Come hither- here
Where a poet dreams...

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 4

Sand Castle by the Fairy Garden

Sand Castle by the Fairy Garden

Never ever in all my years
Has the human me built more
than a meticulously lumpy mound
of fussed over wet sand
sinking into
moat

But each attempt
is a day at the beach

Salt air and breeze
Freeing the spirit me

The playful me
The winsome me
Searching for shells
& believing in the treasures
at hand

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 3

The Fairy Garden Poems ...Beginnings

In April a borrowed dog tentatively explores our garden

The Fairy Garden
started with a stump.

The Mulberry Bush
became a tree
became a tangle
became too big...

Its intrusive roots reaching
into our house foundations

The Mulberry Bush
came down.

What to do with the stump?

The stage- the podium
the perfect time & place
for a flower fairy.

poem & picture copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 2

1. The Fairy Garden Poems

My Fairy Garden, seen from afar

and seen up close, the statue of the fairy who accidentally started it all

We use our words here
And dream
Beautiful dreams

Whim is welcome
And kindness

As for time
Even the briefest pause
Is long enough for a universe to unfold

poem & pictures copyright ©2008 Anne Selden Annab
The Fairy Garden Poems # 1