Featured Poem II • April 2015
The Traveler’s Wagon Speaks
Jane Yolen
The road is long, but hope is longer. My people speak to the purple thrusts of willowherb in the crackling verges. Wild ponies follow in my ridged tracks. The road is long, but laughter longer. Each performance children howl back at the puppets, their parents smirking behind wrinkled, smoke-stained hands. The road is long, but faith is longer. The traveler’s wife worships at the crossroads, leaves floral offerings at stone boundaries, acorns in leaf baskets at the foot of trees. The road is long but love is longer. The traveler sings by the fire to his wife. Their child dreams in his cot of moontide, mornings, the treasures of the road.
Jane Yolen, often called “the Hans Christian Andersen of America,” is the author of over 350 published books, including Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? The books range from rhymed picture books and baby board books, through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, nonfiction, and up to novels and story collections for young adults and adults. She has won two Nebulas, a World Fantasy Grand Master Award, and been named a Grand Master of sf/fantasy poetry by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Six colleges and universities have given her honorary doctorates, and her Skylark Award—given by NESFA (the New England Science Fiction Association)—set her good coat on fire.
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