Stolen Farthings- Stolen Peace

(Grimm 154)

I call on my friend, and stop by his house

Upon their boy’s untimely death. Alas,

there, at noon, a child, softly as a mouse,

moves sickly and with a pallor of glass.

The child draws no attention from my friends

as he enters an empty room and paws

at the floor, scraping, scratching nails. It ends,

when the boy leaves the room from which he claws.

The scene repeats for days, noon after noon.

I ask my friends “Whose child this boy may be?”

They ask “In the room where he died too soon?”

Unstartled, they say “Ti’s our boy Fedde

We dig and find hidden under the floor

Farthings given to him meant for the poor.

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