Throwback Thursday: Little Ellie, By Caroline Yu

1-14-16: It's cold outside today, but this terrific poem was originally published in May of 2012.

Editor's note: It's warm outside, but Caroline Yu's winning poem for May evokes all the snowy beauty and sadness of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl."
 
Oh my little one, I see you’re drenched in rags.
Your bare feet stagger through the snow,
Frosting each street
This last day of the year.
The matches wrapped in
Your hand turned damp.

I watch you wander, searching for
Somewhere that isn’t home,
Searching for me.

Cold cannot touch me here.
Even so, you warm me with your
Cheeks, glowing redder than
Summer sunsets.
My heart bubbles like
A boiling stew pot.
I ache to reach down,
And wrap you close.

Your hair still hangs golden,
Glinting with snowflakes
That won’t melt in the cold.
With a smile you lift your head,
Searching these stars,
A poor girl’s diamonds,
Searching for me.
You are closer.

My moonlight beckons you to a house corner.
Your shivers whisper to strike a match.
The flame ignites, growing to glowing visions.
Would that you knew they hail from me!

Granddaughter, I send you a stove,
Warmer than the summer night
When you were born,
When your star streaked from this heaven,
To earth.  To me.

Your second match sputters.
I share a sizzling feast,
Grander than your tongue has tasted since losing love,
Since losing me.
I snap the turkey’s wishbone,
And I beg for you.

Your final match flickers.
Granddaughter, I give you a 
Christmas tree decked with steady candles,
Blazing brighter than my stars.
Have you caught their glow in your eyes?
Do you sense your loved one at last?

You knit your net of hope with heartstrings,
Capturing my light as the match dies,
And a star falls.
Heaven has sent the one you longed for.

Oh my little one, snuggle in my arms.
Let your laughter shake this sky
As we rise to home,
And our new year begins.                     


Biography: Caroline Yu has previously sold a play to Play’s children’s magazine, and published a poem with Berry Blue Haiku.  Two of her short stories received honorable mentions in the 2007 and 2010 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competitions.

Image by Anne Anderson.

Mary Meriam, The Prince of Glass

Editor's note: Below is Mary Meriam's "The Prince of Glass," one of the April winners of the EC monthly contest. It's a lovely poem that uses images of glass in unexpected ways.

He is the prince of shards of glass,
glass bowls with Chinese stamps,
glass crystal balls with legs of brass,
and Tiffany glass lamps.

The prince has chosen to amass
glass window and glass door,
glass shelf and goblet, to surpass
his foes, who might have more.

So when he sees the lovely lass
in glass, he falls in love.
He plinks her coffin on the grass
with his glass-fingered glove.

He hates the forest’s green morass
of trees and shrieking creatures;
with her in glass, they can’t harass
her quintessential features.

The prince pulls out his looking glass
to check his golden locks.
The other things he does,alas,
are unseen from her box.

Mary Meriam's poems are published in Literary Imagination, The New York Times, American Life in Poetry, Measure, Sentence, Think, Light, many other journals, and several anthologies. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, The Countess of Flatbroke and The Poet's Zodiac, and the editor of Lavender Review. 

Altered image by Carravagio.

In the Tower, By Kate Forsyth

Editor's note: Today we move on to April in the Mar(ch)(A)pril(M)ay catch-up process for EC's publication of winning entries. Kate Forsyth is an extensively-published book author as well as a poet. We will be featuring a special post on her work in the next few days.

Walled in my old stone tower

the bitter taste of tears

always in my throat

only a slit to put my eye to

yet how full of change is that sky

I watch the stars wheel past

seasons turning and turning

the one tree on that faraway hill

once more bursts into life

green in the shadows

golden in the light

Walled in my silent tower

how can I frame the words

to tell my story

my heart is a riddle

green sickness in my soul

loneliness the heaviest burden

how I long to slip free

of this empty shadowed tower

fly on muffled wings like the owl

white against the thorns

black against the moon

Walled in my cold stone tower

I conjure a steed from flame

An invisible cloak from ashes

A frail ladder from cobwebs

I make a dagger from ice

A key from bone and wishes

I spin a song from the silence

One day someone shall sing my refrain

Green in the shadows

Golden in the light

Free of my shadowy tower

We shall bind ourselves together

With tendrils of green

With tresses of gold

We shall build a castle of light and air

And banish silence with song

Together we’ll dance in the forest

White against the thorns

Black against the moon

Kate Forsyth is the bestselling and award-winning author of 25 books for children and adults, translated into a dozen languages.

Altered image originally by HJ Ford.

Ballad of Briars, By Stephanie Alderton

Editor's note: Here's the next winning entry we are featuring Marprilay catch-up edition. The poem is worth waiting for.

They thought I was asleep.


But all night through the dark castle halls

I wandered and I watched.

I saw my father asleep on his rich carved throne,

And he frowned as if scolding me in his dreams.

I saw my mother’s sad, pretty face

And heard her soft snores, her wishing.

My maid Betsy was curled up by my bed.

She looked very small on the floor,

So I finished tidying my room for her, a surprise.

And Pierre the stable boy

Slept on the straw beside my sleeping mare.

He looked more handsome when asleep

And I had always wished he was my sweetheart,

So I left a kiss on his cheek when I passed by.

The dust blew and my finger throbbed.


I wandered and watched all night

Around the dark castle walls,

But no one woke up to speak to me

And the breathing silence seemed to whisper strange things.

Then from the high tower I saw the black hedge,

The black, ugly thorns that had swallowed the rose garden.

I saw a young man ride up, brightly clothed,

And the Sun flashed on his sword.

I watched him hack, thrust, curse, pray,

And I watched the thorns pierce him through

And leave him hanging in their midst, a scarecrow.

I thought I heard the wails

Of all those left awake in his faraway land.

My finger bled.


In the castle dark and tall

I wandered and watched all night long.

The hedge came to be full of bones

And the wind always sounded like weeping.

I saw them fall, young men and old,

Their longing eyes turned up to my tower,

Their sweethearts’ names in their death-screams.

Then something in me said “enough.”

I tiptoed to the great locked rotten gate

And I heaved.

And I looked up to the grey sky and prayed

With all of my strength, with all of my blood,

With all my long tears and wakefulness,

Only that the empty scarecrow eyes might watch me no more.

I heaved and I prayed all night.

And when the last sodden boards fell away,

He, the last knight, was walking through a path in the hedge.

It was morning and my finger was scabbed.


They said I was asleep.

But as I watch the young knight beside me,

Listen to his deep breaths fill the silent room,

Think of the children who will wake us tomorrow,

I remember what was before he was.

I will watch him all night.

It is a small thing.

But my finger aches,

And deep in my blood, I know.

I know, I know—


This is my curse:

I was awake.

Stephanie Alderton is a creative writing student living in Colorado (with occasional visits to Middle Earth and Narnia). Her interests include: mountains, ancient trees, swords, singing, and scribbling.

Altered image originally by Arthur Moore.