It's Always Something - Reprise

So, long before I ever dreamed up this blog the wee folk were part of my poetry. I have Celtic roots and instincts. I prefer a whole ecology of the divine and semi-divine, complete with angels, demons, devas, faerie, dwarves and elves, gods and goddesses, familiars, witches and mages and as I write of them here, gremlins.

The original impulse to house gremlins comes from a science fiction story of the fifties. I believe it was by Robert Sheckley, but only because Sheckley wrote wonderful off beat often humorous stories. This story was about a guy who got gremlins in a cloaked birdcage, gremlins who lived in a lovely house and garden and gave him lovely luck when he took the birdcage into his house. He could not resist peeking in on them even as he was warned that they wanted complete privacy. Finally there was a "for rent" sign put up and then the vacancy. His luck departed too. After awhile he noticed there were tenants again in the birdhouse but everything was run down and sloppy, a slum as it were. Also though his luck was still mostly good, it was also sort of sloppy and never a pure blessing again. So much for looking at your luck.

My mother and I agreed we must have slum gremlins for we had what we called sloppy good luck. Things turned out for the better most often, but there was also this rather ugly price, sometimes before the luck, or with it, even after. That's the story of my life pretty much, sloppy good luck. Slum gremlins.

Oh by the way, the crack in the windshield was a real outcome of a journey on a day when I did find my keys after a brief moment when I thought I wouldn't.

It's Always Something**

The small folk are in charge of where things are
In my house. I don't understand the rules.
Where my keys rest, on what surface they should be
Goes according to them, not according to me.

I really try to get along. I really mean this. No, really.

Today I rejoice with wide eyes. Today I found my keys
Right where my best thinking said they would be.

(Now I hope the small folk haven't moved away
In protest of some willful violation of mine-
Perhaps instead I find my keys seemingly unmoved
Where they are through some act of mine they approve.)

The simple blessing of found keys, you would think
Enough, but I was still late for work. Road gremlins.

My windshield is newly cracked in the lower right corner.

**Earliest save September 24, 2006
Probably written around that time.
First posted on this blog, part of my second post ever, November 8, 2008