ONCE UPON A TIME

ONCE UPON A TIME

From the beginning, years/have been love letters/to things that disappear/and remain. --- From “Two Thousand and….” by Hannah Stephenson, The Storialist, o6-28-11 

Once upon a time: is a slumber line if any,

unlike lullabies that now use the F word.* 

Once upon a time: was a trigger to fantasy

about frogs and princes, fairies and trolls. 

“Once upon a time” has yet to be edited

out of Hemingway, Faulkner, and Bellows. 

Once upon a time: that, too, has come back

to all our versions of the incarnated Word. 

Once upon a time the world was simpler

than we know. That was once upon a time. 

But our milestones were once upon a time

marks of how far we have rolled millstones 

farther away from what once upon a time

were the jumping cliffs of self-immolation. 

We will move on, but leave our footprints

where we were happy once upon a time. 

---Albert B. Casuga

06-28-11

*Have you come across Samuel Jackson’s reading of “Go the F*** to Sleep! “? Google it. It has broken You Tube hit records. In our time.