Once upon a midnight West

a tinkling in the air

awoke some owlets' from their rest

a mournful song was waiting there

to catch a ferry unto the East

a feast for the vultures in a bedouins lair

where crackling fires spit

flaring flames, yellow and bare

as the branches of  deciduous trees' in Winter

and euphorbias' scarlet clusters cling

squeezing every last drop of magnesium milk

on juniper hedge-rows and mistletoe

before roses can bud and bloom

in the merry merry months of May and June

where mermaids bathe in Ambrosia

behold the shining dew

sleep in leafy suburbs

dream of the forests' wealth

and the promise of fairy glens.