With all that’s going on in the world right now, it’s a fitting day for whimsy …don’t you think?

Anticipating the arrival of my European relatives in a couple weeks, I couldn’t help but think about my Germanic roots and how those roots have influenced my life, probably in ways I know as well as via my subconscious.

Gnomes are a whimsical creation of German origin, so I’m told by various online resources. The Brothers Grimm (who else?) included their tale number 91, The Gnome, in one of their collections of fairy tales.

Every time I read (or re-read) one of these fairy tales, I’m reminded how absolutely unfiltered these stories are. This amuses me because I know literature for children today covers certain allowable themes while other themes are way off limits. I think Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm would be aghast at today’s strict and puzzling approach.

I’ve whiled away hours of my life (yes, even in adulthood) imagining a world populated with gnomes and trolls, unicorns and satyrs. Today’s sonnet makes an attempt at re-connecting the mostly pedestrian garden gnome to its fanciful roots.

Herewith, a whimsical sonnet.