A Little Bit Of Bubbly

What a happy circumstance we live not far
From fairyland! Just one slight change of light or quirk
Of fancy jumps us through its borders, jars our vision
Into strangeness, skews our views toward glad deceptions.
Give the usual just a quarter turn, a touch
Of the exotic, and discernment’s realigned
(But not too far!) as if by some benign narcotic.

So at night a wholly ordinary square
Of yellow light (a bedroom not too far away)
Becomes, through trees, a breezy spread of darting circles,
Mellow will o’ wisps. Hovering above
Those lissome limbs, a distant airplane’s humdrum drone
And light become a firefly-by-night’s bright buzz,
Both sculling smoothly through a soothing, star-pearled sky.

A world of charming weirdness waits beyond one’s window.
Though one cannot taste or smell it, one still feels
Its touch, the bond it blithely forms with normalcy,
So one may follow its disarming flow with pleasure,
Drawing comfort from its quiet, measured motion.
Such refreshment, such delight! As keen, I’d think

As one might feel who plumbs the ocean to observe
Its phosphorescent denizens serenely crossing,
Darting to and fro for no apparent reason,
Sculling in contentment through a liquid sky
While, reaching up en pointe (at least en tiptoe), thin
Insinuating branches dip and sway, their supple
Joints atwirl to silent inner harmonies.

A pleasing place, this world, in which to play! For whether
Rearranging seas or skies, and strangefying
Aught that lies outside us into myth, or not --
Served straight or with a hint of effervescence, just
A little bit of bubbly -- we are doubly blessed
That while creation’s realm is always all it should be,
One’s imagination makes it all it could be.