Well, it seems that Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is going to fail to exceed expectations. Pity, it could’ve been a fun idea. So let’s turn instead to Louise Glück’s creepy little poem:
This is the world we wanted.
All who would have seen us dead
are dead. I hear the witch’s cry
break in the moonlight through a sheet
of sugar: God rewards.
Her tongue shrivels into gas. . . .Now, far from women’s arms
and memory of women, in our father’s hut
we sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget?
My father bars the door, bars harm
from this house, and it is years.No one remembers. Even you, my brother,
summer afternoons you look at me as though
you meant to leave,
as though it never happened.
But I killed for you. I see armed firs,
the spires of that gleaming kiln—Nights I turn to you to hold me
but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
hiss in the stillness, Hansel,
we are there still and it is real, real,
that black forest and the fire in earnest.
Rather alarmingly (how long have I been reading her?), the collection of her Poems 1962-2012 has been published. I don’t keep up with contemporary poetry (see Sturgeon’s Law), but she’s very good.
After reading (several times) this poem, I have just purchased her collected works, 1962-2012. Wow…just WOW!
So glad to hear it! “The Triumph of Achilles” was the 1st book I picked up by her, b/c of “Mock Orange.” And “The Wild Iris” is marvelous. But I lost touch w/ her work after that, so I’m looking forward to going through that 1962-2012 myself.