Reena’s Exploration Challenge # 124

Reenais the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge.

Welcome back to another week!

I had a tough time getting a pesky fly out of the house today. In the process, I came to admire her incorrigible optimism.

Here’s a poem by Lisel Mueller

IMMORTALITY
In Sleeping Beauty’s castle
the clock strikes one hundred years
and the girl in the tower returns to the world.
So do the servants in the kitchen,
who don’t even rub their eyes.
The cook’s right hand, lifted
an exact century ago,
completes its downward arc
to the kitchen boy’s left ear;
the boy’s tensed vocal cords
finally let go
the trapped, enduring whimper,
and the fly, arrested mid-plunge
above the strawberry pie,
fulfills its abiding mission
and dives into the sweet, red glaze.

As a child I had a book
with a picture of that scene.
I was too young to notice
how fear persists…