‘Truth in Fairy Tales’ by Susan Martin

If you want your children to be brilliant,
tell them fairy tales. If you want them
to be very brilliant, tell them even more
fairy tales. -Albert Einstein

Oh, the magic of Once upon a Time,
an entryway to a world undiscovered,
a place where children’s dreams are recovered
of antic creatures who lived before time.
Threats of goblins who over them hover,
ogres and trolls who hide in the slime.
Yet nightmares o’recome by sweet dreams sublime.
Fairy godmother waits undercover
to help every child overcome fears.
She shows the way to navigate strife
and make greed and selfishness disappear,
for good will triumph, though evil is rife.
All a child must do is persevere.
Happily ever after, then, for life.

Susan Martin is a poet and a retired English and Creative Writing Teacher living in New Jersey.

Featured Image: “The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania” by Sir Joseph Noel Paton