A Fanciful Spirit (A Poem)

By Joyce Jacobo

[Author’s Note: I know it’s still a bit early, but the spooky season is on the way, and I’m getting excited. It feels nice to indulge in some lighthearted creepiness after the very real fright of having to evacuate from my home the other day due to a wildfire. But now a rainstorm has made all the difference, and I’m now safely at home.]

Amid the chilled depths of October

   when the veil between one state         and another

                                               has grown thin

                   as a frozen lake thawed by the morning sun

        I have heard tales about a certain peculiar spirit

                …perhaps a hobgoblin

                       …or even a sprite

            known to slip between the cracks into our world

                            by the odd little title—

                                     Tib the Fanciful Fay

She who tends to wander the most around the countryside

          with a form that shifts like the autumn wind

                from a cat who follows good-natured souls   like a protective shadow

                  to a young woman able to dance into exhaustion whole crowds

                                              of late-night revelers

                              to a bright will-of-the-wisp that leads travelers on

                                                  adventuresome trails to bewilder them

But Tib is one         focused on more than her own wily pleasures

      since I have heard she frequents lesser known or abandoned gravesites

             and stirs up the spirits there for a while in conversation

                      so they might sink back down into restful dreams

                                         for another year to come    

          in combination with a noted interest in the children who

                     often flock about on her favorite night

                                   of All Hollow’s Eve

                        …and when under her observance are safe

                                          from what she terms

                                     “The wrong kind of mischief”

A happy presence                I suppose                  to companionable sorts

              quick to shift into a vaporous beast when she crosses paths

                               with shady souls                          

             …filled with mischief

                                                  …a guide of many faces

                              …never in the same place for more than a few hours

                     until Winter drives her back across the veil

                                                  towards much stranger destinations

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