The whole creative process behind the making of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies and the original tales has and have always fascinated me.  How about you?

Somewhere In A Hobbit's Town
by Michael Romani

Somewhere in Switzerland begins the journey
That will end on New Zealand's shore
There into a Tolkienian mash of fantasy
Where Hobbits are believed in just a bit more

Tales that have regaled my fanciful generation
And are and were held dear with great veneration
Lord of the Rings and Hobbiton are in the north
Their ruins stand there today for what it's worth

These are the stories that flow fascinatingly deep
That make us smile and in turn also make us weep
All of these like some magical tea left to steep
All of these worthy the memories that we keep

The road of this life goes endlessly on and on
With so much to discover and then dream upon
So many adventures woven into the words we read
Even more bits of imagination becoming truly freed

From 2D to 3D, it's there for all openly to see
All the little gardens from Tolkien's fantasy
There in a world of recreated beautiful detail
Are our school daze daydreams made close to real

Small drawings sketched that have persisted
Until it is made as if it has always existed
It's as if one was walking around in one's head
Being able to touch the alchemy of things said

Look, look and then I say, look yet again
To and at so much beauty that never seems to end
New Zealand's wilds share much with Mid-Earth
All of the mystery, magic and some of its mirth

When fantasy becomes inspired by reality
The fusion that results is masterful in conceptuality
It's an immersion that blending and lending into the feeling
Of an artist's soul that conceals, veils and is revealing

Coming home a little colder, damper and wiser in part
With all the things seen somehow a bit closer in heart
The Rings saga has a feel of something nature saturated
Protected and kept and yet the artist's pencil has penetrated

In telling its wordless story layer by layer in drawing
While the pantheons of the created hear that God is calling
All of this a fragmentary blessing in traces of the created
That grip our hearts and always keep us fascinated

(c) January 30, 2020  Michael Romani
All Rights Reserved