Young Writers Project is a creative online community of teen writers, photographers and artists, which has been based in Vermont since 2006. Each week, VTDigger features the writing and art of young Vermonters who publish their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for 12- to 18-year-olds. To find out more, visit youngwritersproject.org, or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org and 802-324-9538.
If you’ve ever read “Grimms’ Fairy Tales” — the proper originals — you may recall that “Cinderella” (as one example) includes the removal of the stepsisters’ toes to fit into the golden slippers, and the dressing pigeons’ attack of the pair’s eyes in punishment for their wickedness. Through Disney these children’s stories have now long been sanitized from dire warnings to fireside reads. But this week’s featured poet, Sela Morgenstein Fuerst of South Burlington, reminds us that if we’re not too careful, the characters in these classic tales may still jump out and lead us astray.
Fairy tale children
Sela Morgenstein Fuerst, 10, South Burlington
Slipping out of eyesight
through windows
and out backdoors
in the dark of night,
with only the stars as witnesses.
Slipping through thick forests
carrying sweet-smelling woven baskets,
drinking in the sun and flowery perfume
of the woods,
bold in their red cloaks and redder lips.
Slipping off the path,
not fearful of wolves,
nor spirits of rivers and moonlight
who enjoy watching children drown.
Slipping down hidden wells
off invisible embankments
through mirrors made of silk and dreams.
Slipping toward penny-eyed demons
waiting hungrily for their stolen meals;
river dragons scorned by their jeweled flying cousins,
jealously snatching whatever they can find.
Transparent creatures trapped in glassy prisons,
biding their time until they can seize
someone to take their place.
Fairy tales,
you see,
are hungry, greedy things,
waiting
ever so patiently
for a child
to touch the pages
and
slip.
