The Guild Fanucci

Hansel and Gretel | Part I | Part II |

Hansel and Gretel, Part I
© 2005 George Reed

In deeping forest far away where deer and fox run free…
In shadowed glade a promise made to cherish equally…
A love anew and future bright and children close at hand…
A promise made to all who share the glade wherein I stand…

He cut his wood with careful blade and only with a need…
Taking little, but enough to sell that he could feed…
His children, two, and second wife whose eyes were bright and fair…
In my glade I was impressed the cutter took such care…

The mother of his children had tended me for years…
Always caring and often sharing laughter and her tears…
I also watcher her tend her young, a girl and a boy…
Hansel bold and Gretel bright—my forest knew their name…

Befell one day ‘neath clouds of grey the mother came to me…
Her children but three seasons old beneath a Summer Tree…
She bade to me a sad farewell and thanked me then for all…
The many hours in my glade, but soon must heed the call…

That comes to all of Adam’s sons, and too, the young of Eve…
When heaven says the path is done, a mortal has to leave…
I never saw her back again, my branches hung with grief…
In her honor forth I sent bright hues into each leaf…

The cutter came a season hence when spring at last returned…
As asked for my blessings in a new life that he yearned…
A new life come, a new wife won, a mother for his two…
He swore an oath of father’s love eternally and true…

I whispered to him in that glade on brilliant springly morn…
The path between his new love and the first love’s children born…
He swore his oath and meant it well, and blessed then was he…
But woe betide if ever he betrayed a Summer Tree…

For a season, and then two, I knew that all was well…
The family near me grew and thrived in loving summer spells…
But, anon, there came a wind and I knew its name…
The hue was green and jealousy had grown from spark to flame…

A new wife fair wanted there to have her own newborn…
The cutter told her they could barely four of them keep warm…
She begged of him to send the young to seek out on their own…
Saying many creatures wild, at five, are mostly grown…

He set to take his family out beneath my shade…
They lingered there for many hours in the summer glade…
While the children dozed away beyond the nooning hour…
The new wife set upon the man to bring him in her power…

“Take the children deeper now into the ancient wood…
And steal away at end of day and they are gone for good…”
Cutter was not with pleased at this but thought to ease her wrath…
He took his children far away, marking well the path..

With pebbles that he knew would shine out clearly by moonlight…
Before he left his children there he bade them wait for night…
Most afraid the children made to wait ‘til sun went down…
No little joy was felt by them when pebbled path they found…

No little wrath was felt next day when swift into their keep…
Hansel bold, and Gretel bright, came to their father’s relief…
But his wife as one might guess wasn’t pleased to see…
The children safely home again beneath a Summer Tree…

She made him take them out again, no pebbles in his hand…
But he was sly, letting bread crumbs fall where they might land…
Although not bright, crumbs are white– moon would let them see…
Their way at dark along the paths unto a Summer Tree…

The wife was sly and standing by and saw there what was done…
I knew by words she had with birds that battle had begun…
The birds flew out and ate the crumbs and thusly took the trail…
The Cutter made it home but in the dark the children failed…

In morning’s light I saw them both standing at the door…
Guilt had flowered in the wife, her eyes down at the floor…
She bade him go and bring them back from an evil fate…
But even as he left I knew the Cutter was too late…

My roots run deep and much I see that passed in the land…
And if they ever came back home , would not be Cutter’s hand…
That set them free from cruelties, nor saved them from the fire…
His journey failed…I heard them wail at what of late transpired…

I whispered to them in my glade whose oath had to me bound…
No joy or child might ever come until the two were found…
His axes dulled, her planting spoiled, such lessons they would see…
Await the foolish who betray an oath to Summer Tree…