What I Found While Cleaning a Faeries' Well - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

What I Found While Cleaning a Faeries’ Well

 

Perhaps it was because I cleared the vines

The ancient vines, with tools of iron, of steel

And traced the circles of the well’s lost lines

With my unhallowed hands, by touch and by feel

 

Or that I wore my boots, or forgot my prayers

To the White Lady said to haunt this place

Or whistled secular songs, careless airs

Until the dusk, when I came face-to-face…

 

I have lived to tell of this wildest of adventures

I found on the lichened stone – a set of dentures

 

 

Despite my disapproval of exposition:

 

Until we became Roman and respectable, my Celtic and English ancestors made offerings at sacred wells associated with pixies and fairies and a mysterious White Lady, or Sheela na Gig.

 

I regret that the old well in my yard, the surviving structure from an old farmstead, is probably not a sacred well, or at least no more than any other well. While I was cleaning away the English ivy (which in English folklore binds lovers), I found on the edge of a brick a denture plate from years ago.

 

When I have finished cleaning the well, covering it with a sturdy concrete disc for safety, and topping it with a wrought-iron arch, I will add a crucifix.

 

I hope the resident Sheela / White Lady won’t mind.