SWEET DREAM: A Poetic Tale

Last year, I wrote up a post titled How Sweet It is!: A Poetry Tale in which I explained how Grace Lin and I came up with an idea for a poetry collection about candy. We both love sweets! I worked on that collection industriously for months. Then I put it aside and forgot about it. I've never submitted it to a publisher. I’m not sure that I ever will.

I’ve already posted several of the poems from the collection. I thought I'd post another one today as I've extended National Poetry Month at Wild Rose Reader. Here is Sweet Dream--a poem in which I relate a short tale about me and three characters from traditional literature—Hansel, Gretel, and the Gingerbread Boy.


SWEET DREAM

Tired and hungry
After hours of wandering in the forest,
Hansel, Gretel, and I
Come upon a caramel apple orchard.
In the center of the candied fruit trees,
We discover a giant gingerbread house
Dripping with vanilla icing,
Its rock candy windows glistening in the sunlight,
A puff of cotton candy billowing from its chocolate chimney.
We tiptoe up to the peppermint door,
Lick the bright red stripes.
We crunch the peanut brittle bricks,
Nibble on nougatty shutters,
Munch on marshmallow molding.
While feasting on the edible brown bungalow,
We see a pink-frosted gingerbread boy
Jump out a side window.
He looks at us with raisin eyes
And taunts:
“Catch me if you can.
Hah! You can’t catch ME.
I’m the gingerbread man.
I am! I am!””
Then he races off down the path
Toward the river.
We smirk…knowing what
Lies in wait for him:
A sly fox
At the river’s edge.

Hansel and Gretel and the Yummy House

According to Ralph Mannheim’s translation of the tale of Hansel and Gretel in his book Grimms’ Tales for Young and Old, the house that Hansel and Gretel came upon in the forest was made of bread, its roof of cake, and its windows of sparkling sugar. When the old woman who lived in the house, discovered the children nibbling on her cottage, she led them inside and served them a meal of milk, pancakes, sugar, apples, and nuts. Note: No mention of a gingerbread boy living in the house has been recorded in any of the translations or retellings of this old German tale.

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At Political Verses, I have a poem by J. Patrick Lewis titled POP-UPS.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Family-Bookshelf.