Gandalf’s Fireworks

Where did wandering Gandalf stop to bend
His weighty hours to crafting fine fireworks,
To quiet cares of all his greater ends,
Recall creation’s fire in joyous sparks?

Was it a cozy cottage? In the Shire,
Southfarthing perhaps? Or in Old Tom’s land?
In a bee buzzed glade* near great Beorn’s fires?
Did mighty Elrond stoop to lend a hand?

Wherever hid, I think it must have been
A holy place. Rooms for conjuring ores
To soar and bloom in bright metallic sheens.
Rooms to rest and feed an old body sore.

There on a porch he chuckles, wreathed in smoke,
Imagining all his dear Hobbit folk.

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I have been mulling over this question for while, not as a serious academic question mind you, but as an exploration about what it might have been like for Gandalf to rest, to recreate, to rekindle his spirit. And what a mighty spirit his was–“servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor,” a great Maiar from the dawn of creation. How odd to think of him incarnated in an old man’s body at all, prone to weariness, needing to eat and sleep. And odder still is the fact that he who was the Maiar who learned pity from Nienna, the Valar who mourned for all sorrows of Middle Earth, became such a friend of merry, earthy Hobbits. Though perhaps it is not odd at all. This sonnet is a little creaky in parts, but it is a decent start.

*With thanks and apologies to Yeats for theft.