With gratitude to a friend and a poet, Yana Kane, who asked this question – and inspired so many others.
White monolithic marble
slowly flows into
blue, where curling spires,
gradually exhausted,
fade into sky and vanish.
Tracing intricate movement,
my gaze, under its enchantment,
takes me away and out
where there is no sound,
colour or time – just spaces
still but containing movement.
Somewhere in these spires
there’s an enchanted princess
sleeping a hundred years
and one.
And then?
[question from the audience]
What happens
In year one hundred and two?
And then…
When a miracle happens it gives you a choice –
it defies the prediction’s imperious voice.
If the prince failed to show and give you a kiss
you can give happy ending a miss.
You can stay in your own unchanged universe
and ignore the fairy’s presumptuous curse.
You can stick middle finger to human endeavour –
Sleeping Beauty, enchanted forever.
