I wrote this vignette for a Halloween festival at my daughters’ school in 2013. It’s the song of an overworked gnome who is put in charge to write a lullaby for the plants to go to sleep as fall is coming.
(Gnome sits on desk with paper and quill composing, crumpling up papers and throwing them in a basket)
1 Words, words, words, always such a bother!
A poet’s headache, a poet’s bliss,
A poet’s passion like no other!
2 Once a year I’m called to write
A gentle lullaby
For seeds and plants both tall and small
For bees and butterflies.
3 Because, you see, the wind’s grown cold
And the leaves are slowly falling.
Winter’s just two moons away
And Earth is swiftly calling
4 All of spring and summer’s bounty,
Seeds of pumpkin, oak and hazel,
Berry, flower, fruit and basil
And their cousins off to bed.
5 All of this is good and well
And a very timely mission
Could I only find the words
To call them home so they can rest
In Earth’s dark ground while they transition
6 With the winter’s frosted fleet
To another spring time’s glory
Rested well and bound to greet
Green Man’s laboratory.
7 But alas! I need a muse
To help with this assignment!
But none is close, I fear, and I
Must carry on alone
Within my own head’s dull confinement.
(turns to children)
8 But wait a minute, look at you! Can’t you all be my muses?
And help me write this lullaby
For flowers, seed and butterfly?
(children: YES!)
9 I take this as a yes, hooray!
Oh thank you all, dear children!
Now lets not dilly dally long
And let’s go catching words of song
For autumn’s nightly pilgrim.
10 So here it how it goes with this
With catching words of slumber:
You close your eyes and listen still
To autumn hiking on the hill
And cold nights growing in number.
11 You listen to the turning leaves
To damp and heavy clusters
Of clouds and winds blown from the North
Assembling and coming forth
In gales and sweeping clusters.
12 You listen to the quiet earth
It’s soft and mossy bedding
The sigh of trees, the breath of frost,
The memory of treasures lost
And found in winter’s wedding.
13 Now come and listen, summer’s charge,
To hear this song of endings.
Go find a bed in earth’s embrace
To wait out winter’s frosty pace
In silence and transcending.
(silence)
14 ‘Tis is the song I meant to write!
It’s done and you all helped me!
Now help me sing it as you go
And find a seed or grass below,
A tired beetle, leaf or flower
Who haven’t heard that winter’s hour
Is fast approaching, close at hand.
15 And for your help take this, dear friends,
To write your own heart’s song.
Just close your eyes and listen still
And let your search be strong.
(gives out writing quill)