"Good Morning, Young Prince!"
© 2002 by Ellin Anderson

And there, within the azure gloom,
I saw you raise your velvet crown
Above an elder bush in bloom,
As you stared me down

Through palisades of diamond mesh
Like glass reduced to silver wire;
And though the summer dawn was fresh,
Hints of autumn fire

Leapt in your brown eyes as you took
Wild roses from my outstretched palm,
And held me with a solemn look —
Curious and calm.

It spoke of aeons we had shared
Before a nation had a name,
Two races intimately paired
When no deer was tame,

When freckled skin last wore your skin
To comb the heather and the wood
In search of an elusive twin,
And I understood

Why Nature, with a backward glance
Had made me swift, and amply strong
To draw a bow or thrust a lance,
Or to leap along

A craggy stream-bed, with sharp sight
Trained down upon your heart-shaped track,
Intent upon the swifter flight
Of the thing I lack.

I saw you sniff the wind that stirred
Your sleek red coat, whose amber hue
Rose through the forest where one bird
Chanted as he flew;

And, bound for labor's narrow cage,
I raised my steaming coffee cup
In honor of another age.
Then, the sun came up

Between your horns — a disk of flame
That made each tine a golden ray,
And made your skin and mine the same
As I walked away.

© 2005 by Ellin Anderson. All rights reserved. No part of  this work may be copied or used in any way without written  permission from the author.