One Poem by Nancy Taylor

 

The Song of Cinderella

       After The Song of Wandering Aengus

 

She stood under the cedar tree,

because a fear was in her head.

She saw that ivy choked its bark

so, she yanked the parasitic strip.

A black-tailed deer entered the grove

and gazed into her hazel eyes.

She pitched the ivy down to ground

and snagged a tiny wart-less toad.

 

Before she laid it on the earth

she smooched its smooth, grey head.

The toad became a striking prince

with a Jimmy Choo shoe in his hand.

When asked if she would try it on,

her foot slipped in like bees in hives.

That’s when the prince recalled her name—

he’d been smitten by her at his dance.

 

At that, though dressed in Ralph Lauren,

she dared not dream herself with him.

Her years spent mostly out of sight

attending to her house and yard,

with birds and frogs her only friends.

And now she’s riding on a steed

that once had been a black-tailed deer

in route to an otherworldly life.

Nancy Taylor caught the poetry bug after a thirty-year career in nursing. She was just “checking out” a group of retired  poets and it stuck. In 2018, she self-published Can We Keep Him, which is poetry about family dogs (mostly rescued) and their humans. Proceeds of the book benefit an animal rescue and education endeavor called K.A.R.E. in Kitsap County. She has a puppy named Benji who empties her pockets of kleenex! Nancy likes to  garden and occasionally cook produce rabbits any mice haven’t beat her to. She feels lucky to be married to a man who does the heavy lifting in the garden where she lives and enjoys  hiking on an island in the Pacific N.W.