The Princess & The Pea 2020
Since my operation, I mean amputation
I’ve become the princess & the pea:
A whole set of new formed, framed sensitivity,
Plus a set of parts I cannot feel.
Forever reeling with
the adaptation,
Realising all life is but adaptation -
And perhaps adoption of the new.
Bare feet and I feel every crumb.
Two knuckles barely touched
And I am numb,
No more the nimble fingered
I was used to from
The decades prior.
Poor princess! Now I know
Why she goes down in history,
Fairy tale no airy tale: reality.
Time will pass
And more will happen.
Whether it will be ‘Alas’
And I the captive,
Or a brand new happiness
I cannot prophecy.
But by and by
The pea may liquify
And dry, and I,
A princess only.
The Princess and the Pea -- Edmund Dulac
In 1835 Hans Christian Andersen published "Prinsessen paa Ærten," based on a story he had heard as a child (perhaps the Swedish tale "Princessa' som lå' på sju ärter" (Princess Who Lay on Seven Peas). It appeared in "Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Første Samling. Første Hefte" (Tales, Told for Children. First Collection. First Booklet." It is about a prince who had difficulty finding a suitable princess bride. One rainy night, a woman who claimed to be a princess sought shelter in his castle and was given a bed for the night, covered by huge mattresses and 20 feather-beds, with a pea placed at the bottom. In the morning she complained that she had been kept awake by something hard in the bed and that her back was bruised. The prince couldn't believe that he found his true princess. The prince realized that only a real princess would be so sensitive married her; the pea was placed in a museum, where Andersen satirically claimed it could still be seen unless someone had removed it.
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