This month, I continue writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s prompt asks us to describe broccoli to someone who has never seen it before.
How To Save a Fairy
Imagine a miniature
forest with lush emerald trees
a canopy for fairies
sparkling magic beneath
but a foul odor
permeates the land
threatening the fairies
their twinkle-lights fading
in the putrid stench
then the wicked witch
steps from her lair
behind the twisted trees
holding her wrinkled green
fingers up grasping power in the air
her evil laughter beckoning
one brave fairy to come close for a deal
you love children? find them,
find those who will eat of the
foul-smelling trees that will
not harm them but will save you
and my noxious potion spell that will
kill you will only make them grow stronger
so the brave fairy
told the others
who told the birds
who told the woodland critters
who told the house pets
who prompted the parents
to cook all the miniature trees
we call broccoli
and feed them to the children
throughout the land
children in every house balked
but they ate the broccoli
to save their bedtime story heroines
from the evils of the wicked witch
and her foiled fairy fiasco
after dinner, all the mothers took
their pots of boiling broccoli water
to the edge of the woods and
slung the gut-churning water into the
forest, where the fairies watched
from afar and glowed brightly
as the screams of the witch
could be heard throughout
Fairy Land: “I’m melting! I’m melting!”
And that is why children, to this day,
will eat their broccoli – to save a fairy!
Common Threads 