THE PRINCE Once upon a time there lived a prince. And one day the prince opened up his eyes, And he asked the jester, "Where went my throne?" And the jester, smiling, juggling, asked, "Since when did you start looking?" The prince looked down at his feet, Decked in diamonds, and he replied, "When I woke up, just now." The jester looked him up and down, Royal and fragile and fuzzy with time, And asked, "Has your dream, then, ended?" And the prince, wearing armor, freckled And shining, thought to himself that the Throne might not have been misplaced But placed, and placed with jewels And quite a few hands, and he looked at The jester, a gleam in his eye, waiting And walking with one fewer ton, and he Said to the man of a million stories, Finding one of his own in one fewer jewel, "I think it's just begun." And once upon a time, a prince lived. Written in 2002; used in Emmalee.com's thirtieth layout. Poetry