reality can be created, and staged

The Shire

Tolkien imagined a race of small, sturdy salt-of-the-earth folk,

like the best of England before modernity leveled the forests

and fenced private the public land,

these simple “hobbit” folk lived within the souls of English boys

called to fight the Nazis, and win,

these hobbits called to fight the “Eye”, and win,

though with great cost to both,

Peter Jackson knew the world Tolkien’s words saw,

and found it in pastoral, rural North Island New Zealand:

rich rounded farmland, readily released into Hobbiton,

with even a great oak tree right there,

near Bilbo’s age at the party, 111,

add Frodo’s age of 33, then 144 years, 144 guests, 1 gross,

we visit the film set,

and it’s as if Peter Jackson carries us to J.R.R. Tolkien,

and together we imagine what never was

but really what truly is when that which is fantasy

captures more of the real than the mundane

within which so much of us lives. 

by Henry H. Walker

February 27, ’16