Monday, May 18, 2009

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.

the vivid rose ensoleilhe outeows*

mary angela douglas 18 may 2009



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

Saturday, May 02, 2009

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.

Friday, May 01, 2009

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