Moon-Griffin

        It’s fantasy poetry time, and here’s one by Vachel Lindsay (US, 1879-1931).  Lindsay was especially interested in poetry spoken and performed rather than read in silence off a still page, and this one is certainly written as if it records spoken, impromptu words.  Its subtitle is “What Grandpa told the Children.”

The moon?  It is a griffin’s egg,

Hatching tomorrow night.

And how the little boys will watch

With shouting and delight

To see him break the shell and stretch

And creep across the sky.

The boys will laugh.  The little girls,

I fear, may hide and cry.

Yet gentle will the griffin be,

Most decorous and fat,

And walk up to the milky way

And lap it like a cat.

        The gratuitous sexism jars me severely, but setting that aside as a product of its time, there are some really wonderful images in this piece.  I love the idea of the moon as some kind of mythical egg, but if I had thought of that myself, I wouldn’t have thought of a griffin, so that’s a bit of a twist in itself.  It’s also a griffin cub, really, and I picture the fat belly and overgrown paws of a puppy as it walks across the sky to lap up the spilled stars.  The last moon-griffin egg must have been laid yesterday, I guess, and won’t be ready to hatch until November 23.  Keep an eye out for it!

[Picture: Moon-griffin, photoshop design by AEGN from old, unidentified woodcuts.]