VIVID

VIVID

[in memory of my grandmother, Lucy White Young ]

these peripheral fairy stories

I still wind

on a reel of gold

even if the pictures are flickering

in this Celluloid mirror

and the glass slipper slips to the stones

and shatters

before it can be found.

I still preserve like

muscadine jam the

soul's gilt gingerbread;

it's peppermint and gemstone gumdrop

crenellations;

all sugar plum, pastel expectations;

a panoramic view at Easter

of violet-trimmed hats

against a primrose sky;

the key to the heart's most

singular libretto, a

treble clef of stars:

music unfolding like this fugue of far dimensions.

my mother's singing in a green plaid dress:

butter and sugar on enchanted bread,

the faraway Land of Green Ginger,

tomato soup, grilled cheese

fruit cocktail.

ever-closer I gather my anamalies,

secured for a glittering denouement:

twelve fairies with their gifts,

a summer piano's

"Rustle of Spring",

a bird's chilled singing in the holy rain

the spinning wheel unspun

the last sleeve sewn.

the princess clouding capture

with a milky quartz

(tucked into a secret pocket

before the school bell);

treading the springtide scriptures of a dream

coping with wrapped enigmas,

her tears of pearl recondite-

like everything else.

prayers with no transliteration, heard

even from such dim towers.

all you know.

mysteriously without the wind

the green tree tops begin to bend;

taken up at the hem

the cherry-glazed day arrives:

the vivid rose ensoleil in the outer snows.

mary angela douglas 18 may 2009

*ensoleil: with the sun's rays around it as in heraldic pictures. (Fr.)

Here Is The Harbor Where The Rubied Ship

[Fugue for Amanda Sullivan on a beautiful photograph she composed]

here is the harbor where the rubied ship

docks with its curios long-forgotten

with its bolts of

hidden brocade, its doll finery

and tangerines

its rose of attar* and

its ambergris; its bears of little or

no trepidation

its dolls with eyes that close

and open

on the fairytale reprised

in waves smoothed beneath us

like spun glass.

here are the peppermint towers

of former graces, bracing the river

and its silk-screened sky-

the hold where the jeweled

nightingale is free:

the soul's music-box in tune

and every reflection is reflecting

a happiness vivid and undisguised

and buildings white as cream arise

and non-industrial uses of the day.

and everything is a surprise

but perfectly pictured as in the heart

where no one loved

need ever depart

mary angela douglas 2 may 2009

*rose of attar is attar of roses reversed to indicate the photograph's mirroring waters.

Shone

we are leaving behind

books that are unwritten

children who won't be born.

we are leaving

the unweeded gardens the

high pavillions of

peerless starlight

and much that is unleavened.

you may be asked in Heaven

why you abandoned in

bright midsummer the

cream colored cottage and the

strawberry vine

leaving the teacups

scattered,

taking

not even your books that opened at

the same page always

when the dormer winds blew...

was it war or famine

or unmentionable distress-

was it the witch with

the poisoned apple with her combs

of pale green diamonds like no other April...

my unregarded words?

or were you just filling time

with music only angels heard

when the sad, unaccountable distance-

 Shone?

mary angela douglas 29 August 2011/1 may 2009