The Crone
Poem © by Delia Sherman • Illustrations © by H. J. Ford • Originally published in Black Heart, Ivory Bones, ed. Datlow & Windling, Avon, 2000
I sit by the side of the road, comfortably planted
On a stone my buttocks have worn silky.
My garments are a peeling bark of rags,
My feet humped as roots, my hands catch
Like twigs, my hair is moss and feathers.
My eyes are a bird’s eyes, bright and sharp.
I wait for sons.
They always come, sometimes twice a day
In questing season, looking for adventure,
Fortune, fame, a magic flower, love.
Only the youngest sons will find it:
The others might has well have stopped at home
For all the good I’ll do them.
It's the second sons who break my heart,
Anxious at their elder brothers’ failure,
Stuck with the second-best horse, the second-best sword,
The second-best road to disaster. Often I wish
A second son would share his bread with me,
Wrap his cloak around my body, earn
The princess and the gold.
That’s one wish. The second (I’m allowed three)
Is that a daughter, any daughter at all—
Youngest, oldest—seeking her fortune,
A kingdom to rule, a life to call her own
Would sit and talk with me, give me her bread
And her ear. Perhaps (third wish) she’d ask
After my kin, my home, my history.
Ah then, I’d throw off my rags and dance in the road
Young as I never was, and free.
Home | Biography | Writing for Adults | Writing for Children | News | Links | Contact | Blog | Bibliography | Read | Press