Desiderium

My curtain billows gently from the breeze

that whispers the song of the midnight folk,

undulating like the wings on bees,

from the shelter of the boughs of the oak

but I don’t stand up to close my window,

for such a noise would deftly awaken

the winged sprites who, in a winnow,

would gladly leave me forsaken

and who would lull me to sleep then?

For without their delicate lyric,

I’d stare out to the darkened glen

in my isolating, pyrrhic

victory, and so I let the cool air

perpetuate my shiver, and fervently gaze

as the fairies light their flares,

each wand dipped in the sun’s golden rays,

from a pot that was once a thimble,

and they encircle skywards the black night

graceful and ever so nimble,

and they, with their lights

scatter across the cupola, each their own star.

The rabbit in the sky lights his moon-home

and I gaze from afar,

as his curtains – clouds – begin to roam,

and I know that when I pretend

to hold the moon in my hand

it’s only a reminder

that I’m bound to the land.

Written by Serina Welikala.

Desiderium is the Latin word for an ardent longing or yearning for the past, and is derived from sidus meaning star. It literally means to have such an ardent longing that it is like you are being separated from your star. In writing this piece, I was filled with nostalgia for the worlds of Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree, where I befriended the fairies and creatures that lived there for only as long as I turned those pages.