Poem: Magic

Lucy Crane,The Elves and the Shoemaker

 A rough draft.  Constructive criticism, etc., please and thank you.

Cobblers will tell you.
Bleary-eyed and woe-worn,
they drag themselves to bed
after the evening news,
a kaleidoscope of disjointed fragments:
treaties broken like twigs
over the knees of bullies;
laws devoured by smirking politicians who
dab their lips with a napkin;
peace toppled from a lofty wall
(all the king's men couldn't put it back together);
lives unraveled, children shed
like dead skin, putting Laius to shame.
Cobblers will tell you:
the making's gone out of them.
Slumber delivers.

The following morning,
after dry toast and black
coffee, the craftsman finds
upon the tidy work bench
supple leather of lordly red,
embroidered, fastened with brass
buttons and fixed with sturdy soles.  He beholds
the glorious shoes.
Where did they come from--
rather, how could they be?
Magic worked in the night,
sewing, mending, singing.
Limbs reanimate.  Art lives.
It might as well have been elves
that made them.