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have been known to move
tables and chairs invisibly
at whim,
cause windstorms in untidy towndwellers’ cupboards
and steal the odd mortal baby.
They don’t like cats: competition.
Birds and fish are closer kin,
also mice that scamper
at an unnerving pace.
They make love
with the arrival of spring,
marry in summer, turn
gloomy in autumn.
Discerning their favourite colour
is tricky: is it green
or violet? Other times
they are clothed in magical red
or blue:
not the pallid hue from gossamer cartoons
but blue-black of early night sky,
the sun having long withdrawn
below the horizon, permanently banished.
There is no Tinkerbell in faeryland.
Children of twilight, fair folk,
gentry, the others,
wee ones, Sidhe,
grey neighbours,
with many more names
euphemistic and laudatory.
They are rumoured to fancy poets,
dimly to hover about them—
both angel and nemesis.
The
Good People
by Clara Blackwood
from: Visitations,
©2004
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