Dumbling

Why should a bumbler like me
be rained upon by riches —
a princess beyond dreaming,
succession to a kingdom,
the golden bird and horse —
gifts I never hoped for?
All along, I got things
wrong — misread signs,
misheard instructions.
The fox carried me on —
to the next opportunity,
my next major disaster.
Why did he always
turn up to heal my nightmare —
shovelling from sight
the unmoveable mountain,
pulling me half-drowned from
a well I'd been cast into?
He took my failures with
such grace, kept tendering
advice: how weary
he must have been of waiting
for me to learn… Why
on earth did he do it?