The Widdershins
Leftward went his stride, counter to the sun he strode.
They said he was magicked hence by the fairies
or was a mechanical manikin
witched up from a pot of spells.
Old widdershins had a stove pipe hat
and his clothes were plucked from a crow
he was a longshanks, and wicker-boned,
when he circled a church counterclockwise
old wives muttered about the ‘devils work’
but he was just crook-legged and addled.
Queen Mab midwife of the odd and less ordinary
made him from willow cane and burnt straw
and when he circled the wrong way all day
it was only to stabilize the penny-farthings
that roamed around country churches back when.
The land, despite dire warnings,
did not lose itself in a maze of sorrows,
for all was an enchanted misdirection
a hocus-pocus roundabout detour,
a contrary conjecture
that right was always right despite,
and left was just a gauche and a gangly wish.
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