THE GOOD WITCH OF THE NORTH (TARA’S FIFTY-SECOND)
Long before you inherited the ruby slippers,
and the wand that shoots love like a sparkler;
long before the tiara of goodness became yours,
like her beauty queen’s crown before it,
or the gown made of gossamer and silk,
shiny and strong as you have grown to be,
flowed around you as it did around her,
the way everything flowed around her,
like rings of invisible topology centered on her
and changing every time she thought a good thing
said a good thing, did a good thing.
Before her magic settled completely around you,
within you, and throughout you,
she was shaping you to take her place,
she was guiding you to learn all you would need to know:
“Love everything without a reason.
Nourish it and let it grow its own way,
But don’t be afraid to trim it and shape its growing
for its own good, and for the good of The Good.
Guide where you can, prune where you must.
This is your garden now, plant it new in new places.
It’s tending is not meant to be a burden,
don’t let it become one. Let it be what it is,
a joyous labor of love, and all that you do
will flourish and spread, the way the pollen of one plant
spreads on the wind, generation after generation,
until there are flowers everywhere.
Nothing, even now, makes her happier
than to see how lushly and beautifully you have grown
now in your fifty-second season
of sowing splendor in our hearts.
©WILLIAM JOHN WATKINS
William John Watkins 