Sarah Das Gupta

MIDSUMMER MISCHIEF!

Milk stands in wooden basins
A fly crawls along blackened rafters
an escape from the midsummer heat
I have many names in the villages and fields
Robin Goodfellow, Puck, Hobgoblin
Spirit of mischief, trickery and jokes
I trace my fingers over the clotting cream
in the evening twilight.
I chuckle to see it turning sour.
In the herb garden, parsley, thyme,
sage, rosemary, burdock,
I touch them so softly –
they wither and droop.
Out in the pastures, the sheep graze.
I ride on their woolly backs
in the dim light I leap
from one to another
In the farm pond eels twist and turn,
through the green, darkening water
I sprinkle a tincture of dried yew
In silver, moonlit meadows
I dance in the magic fairy circles
I creep into lovers’ chambers
strewing heartsease, wild pansy
over the linen pillows
As the horizon lightens
I sleep in a buttercup


Gerald So's YouTube video reading of "Midsummer Mischief!"


Sarah confesses: "This poem centers on the 'crimes' committed by the spirit Puck or Robin Goodfellow in the 16th century and famously in Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'."


SARAH DAS GUPTA is a retired school teacher living in Cambridge, UK. She hastaught in UK, India and Africa. Her work has been published in many magazines/journals - 'Paddle', 'Dipity' 'Waywords', 'Little Seed', 'Bar-Bar', 'Bull', 'The Chamber', Intrangience', 'Dorothy Parker's Ashes', Green Ink' and others. She is interested in equestrian sports, politics, history, the environment, old churches, and ghosts.