Living with Hans Christian Andersen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Everyone loves a Christmas tree, but (let’s face it) Christmas does a fir tree no favours.

Now, both as a child and adult, I have loved the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen...at any time of year. As Christmas draws near, I cannot help but recall The Fir Tree.  

The fir tree is in such a hurry to grow that it fails to enjoy the beauty around it. All it thinks about is how much it wants to become a tall fir tree and see the wide world and experience new things. It finds no joy in the moment, but is always longing for the future. Finally, the fir tree realizes it has wasted its life by living for the future instead of for the present.  As a story about failing to appreciate what we have going for us until it is too late, I dare say many if not most of us can relate to it in one way or another?

Hans Christian Andersen, 1805-1875

As well as loving Andersen’s fairy tales, I carried much of their sense of morality and spirituality with me into adult life, which is possibly why I still enjoy reading them from time to time. It can do no harm (can it?) to recall that naïve, free, faery, spirit upon whose back I would frequently ride off into magical other-worlds and find respite from childhood’s darker side. (However much we may like to think of childhood as all innocence and light, it is no more immune to the harsher realities of human nature and everyday existence than adulthood; the latter, even at its worst, at least offers experience and choices rarely if ever available to us as children.)

This poem is a villanelle.

LIVING WITH HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

A certain Danish weaver

became a tailor, turned to acting, 

found fame as a storyteller

His tales told world over,

(inspiring many an ugly duckling)

a certain Danish weaver

Denmark’s heart breaker,

(the little mermaid lost everything)

found fame as a storyteller

Shrewd political observer,

(even of an emperor’s new clothing)

a certain Danish weaver

Steadfast, like a tin soldier,

(firm favourite at bed-time reading)

found fame as a storyteller

Where childhood rides forever

on the back of its wishful thinking,

a certain Danish weaver

found fame as a storyteller

Copyright R. N. Taber 2013

Fairy Tales Are An Endangered Species

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Many thanks to those readers who have been in touch to say they are enjoying some of the storylines serialised on my fiction blog. I hope to upload them as e-books later this year or early next:

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com

I have even had positive feedback from several straight readers who are enjoying the gay storylines. Wow, that’s nice!

Meanwhile...

Whatever happened to the fairy tale?  On the one hand, an endangered species, while on the other hand ...

Could it be that the metaphor of fairy tale has finally shrugged off its magic cloak for an even darker reality? Oh, for a return to the world of fairy tale and happy-ever-after endings...! [Whatever happened to those?]

Fairy tales are very readable, easy to read and easy on the ear when someone is reading aloud to a child who may need encouragement to read and develop necessary language skills. In addition there is a certain morality about some tales, those of Hans Christian Andersen for example, that can be also read and appreciated as metaphor for the real world by the more discerning adult; The Little Match Girl, The Ugly Duckling ... et al.

FAIRY TALES ARE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

Forests, a kaleidoscope

of colour, patterns ever changing

even as we look, like pages

in a child’s book bringing fairytales

to life for us

Six swans, six brothers,

winging spring skies, seeking an end

to enchantment but must wait

until their sister, like us, finds a way

to make the change

Knights in armour, wielding

swords that spark a summer sunshine;

rose petals dripping the blood

of rivals challenged and taken to task

for the sake of winning

Snow White in a glass coffin,

no hope of resurrection, the wicked

witch has won? Our turn to woo

the mirror now, autumn skies exposing

a festering of wounds

Dragons, breathing fire

that would kill off the trees to please

property developers who

have no time for fairy tales - or

the likes of us

Latter-day knights, wielding

words that spark a wintry sunshine,

robins dripping the blood

of rivals arguing over the last prize left

to us (a glacier coffin?)

Copyright R. N. Taber  2007

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised/updated from the original as it appears in  Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]