Getting ready to write this morning I read The Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day, “Rogue Corn” by Nikki Wallschlaeger.

Wallschlaeger’s poem has whimsy and is playful and mostly light, which I think my poem “Pixed” is also.

I also used the two-line stanza form of “Rogue Corn” which works well with my poem.

I did not know that Peter Pan was going to play such a large role in this poem, not until I found myself writing about “my shadow” and saw the chance to lean in.

A friend a few years ago mentioned how uncanny it was that my life was playing out along the lines of Peter Pan–I refused to grow up (as evidenced by my continuing to work at a summer camp and not get a “real” job until I was 25) and that my wife’s name was Wendy.

Perhaps this is slight evidence, but the idea that I am Peter Pan has stuck with me and has often reminded me to stay playful and find wonder in my world.

So here when I began writing about my shadow that thought quickly entered my mind.

I also leaned in a bit to lyricism, “Peter Pan-ish wishes”, the assonance of “mud”, “dust”, “above” and “trust” in the last stanza, the almost end-line rhyme in the second stanza and the outright end-line rhyme of the third and last stanzas to give a few examples.

I think this keeps the poem playful and light which pairs well with the theme here of trying to keep hopeful about life while the world turns to mud.

As for that the poem speaks to the world right now feeling very muddy which is as political and as I want to get.

There are a couple of Easter Eggs here–the word “buries” is a reference to J. M. Barie who wrote Peter Pan, the word “fairly” which is a reference to fairies and Tinker Bell.

I call these Easter Eggs because they are non-essential for an understanding of the poem but the fact that they are there intentionally and that such “shout outs” as I think of them sometimes are a part of my poetic style.

I think that it is fairly clear here that the thing I think might be living in my woodpile is a fairy, or a pixie and that the dust I speak about is pixie dust, the magic dust that Tinker Bell uses to allow Peter Pan and the Darling children to fly.

A reference which is important to the power I hope my poem has is present in the last stanza,

even if this dusty world has mostly become mud 
we still might fly above by choosing faith and trust.

This is a direct allusion to J. M. Barie’s famous quote,

All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.

I want to say here, and hope that I do, that for us to fly–to keep hopeful and to continue to make wishes, to rise above the mud–we must choose to have faith and trust, to believe at least a bit that this world still contains magic.

I think that Barie’s quote includes this idea–that the world is “made of” faith and trust but also that you make the world when you have faith and trust and when you believe that there is magic in the world.

Hopefully the poem resonates with you and you too still have faith and trust in our world and are able to rise above the mud.

And for the bots that search the web and seek search optimization, here’s the text of the poem not hidden in the image above:

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Something’s living in this woodpile, I’m sure,
not just because I saw something move

out my side-eye, in which such mysteries play, 
through which I saw my shadow crawl away again

under the myrtle and the English Ivy here, where 
it plays hide and seek and buries in the mud, 

and listen! The rain is applauding my discovery 
and my Peter Pan-ish wish, and Wendy–

now my wife–will fairly sure agree that there’s 
still hope at play in these grown-up woods and 

even if this dusty world has mostly become mud 
we still might fly above by choosing faith and trust.

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