Golden Ticket

And now the fall is happening,
like a printing press gone out of control,
it fires leaflets in all directions,
informing and frightening the masses of its progress.
A papery, yellow rain dances with the crystal air
and sometimes comes with a golden ticket;
that lucky leaf that falls upon someone's shoulder.

He, bewildered, collects it from his woolen tweed
and smiles,
for he now has been granted a wish,
a story saved, unlike those volumes
spent and spat out by the manic press
into muddy, trampled libraries,
soon to be subterranean archives of propaganda.
He smiles again,
for this story shall not be forgotten.

Though his vision hardly pierces the misty,
puffed breath of the lake monster, he sets forth
rowing, rowing, not knowing where to
but holding the golden ticket in his hand—
his admission into any kingdom that he chooses.