A Sweet Fragrance and Moonlight

Allow a stout red candle to burn

until its flame glows deep

in the candle’s hollow.

The room in which it burns



must be cluttered with old books,

their spines dry and crooked

like that of gray men

and their stories should



be seasoned with magic,

the kind that rises

from a wizard’s pipe

or flutters between the wings



of fairies on a midsummer’s eve.

Of course, the candle fills the room

with a sweet fragrance and moonlight,

just enough to birth a shadow,



should etch the room

through a window opened

no more than needed to festoon

the dark with an unpleasant chill.

Then, if you wish it, in the candlelight,

on a small stool in the room’s corner,

you’ll see him, a troll with eyes as bright

as sunlight and black lips curled into a smile.

And if cakes are baking and a kettle’s voice

announces it’s time for tea, the troll

may stay, if kindly invited, and sing

you a song, if the cakes are to his liking.

S. Thomas Summers, Vernon