Editor's note: This winning poem grabbed my attention in a big way. While based on a folk-tale rather than a fairy tale, it honors the fairy-tale tradition by having elements of wonder and transformation -- of a rather dark sort. Jennifer adapted it from a Nigerian folk tale.
A hunter
in search of food for his family
walked and walked
but found no prey.
The plains stretched on
and the sun beat
and even he was weary.
There was one tree
that stretched its branches
and he sat beneath it.
Propped his feet
on a white rock
and drank.
When he was rested, he noticed
the rock had two eye-holes
and teeth. Alone
in the vast expanse
except for the sky,
he addressed the rock
in a casual fashion:
“What brought you here, my friend?”
Then he laughed,
grateful no one could hear him.
So perhaps it is to be forgiven
if the hunter jumped
when the skull fixed him
in its empty gaze and said,
“Talking brought me here!”
Food and family forgotten,
he ran to the king
to tell him of this wonder
and the king
and all his attendants
went in stately fashion
to see the talking skull.
The plains stretched on
and the sun beat
so it is perhaps to be forgiven
if the king was weary
and rather hot and bothered
when at last they reached the one tree
that stretched its branches.
The king ordered the hunter
to show him the wonder
and the hunter found the skull
and addressed it in a friendly fashion:
“Greetings again! Please tell my king—
what brought you here!”
But the skull
was silent.
For a long time
the hunter pleaded and implored
questioned and queried
but the skull
might well have been
a white rock to prop his feet on
for all the good it did.
The king was angry.
He had come a long way
and had expected wisdom from beyond the grave
or at least a miracle
that befit his station.
He had his champion
lop off the hunter’s head
and began the long trip home.
Beyond the one tree
the plains stretched on.
Beneath the tree
the skull rolled grinning
over to the hunter’s head and asked,
“What brought you here, my friend?”
And the hunter’s head said sadly,
“Talking brought me here!”
And underneath the shaded earth
the other skulls set up a clattering.
Jennifer A. McGowan lives near Oxford, England, and has published widely on both sides of the Atlantic. For more poetry, info about her first collection, and for samples of her medieval calligraphy, visit http://www.jenniferamcgowan.com
