Music Box Refrain On The Day Doc Watson Died

maybe the moon will rise in full gold foil

behind a tissue paper page

and we will sigh

and it will be the wind not turning

maybe in dreams to green laments                                                                             

that can’t come home to stay and breaking off a sprig

I will awake with only mint for sweetest tea

and sweet gum things to say to the fire fly littered dark

proving again that I was there, still happy-

when the moon rose full in golden foil

behind the tissue paper page and

the small key dropped on a summer day

dripping strawberry coned cream into the grass

is found and fits the lock of

the golden moon foiled perfectly

behind the tissue paper page I’m holding down and

cannot bear to turn…sweet music, stay-

all mountain-bred and livelier as the day

wears on…now I hear everywhere and

all alone on some far stage

blue diamond notes cut sharp, distinct and

scattered everywhere like stars…

and the wild brooks berried by are rushing on

and cannot be contained on earth…but only in that music

till all my tired-out pinafores are

pegged and snapping on the breeze

and the whole picnic’s thrown overboard

tear dropped spilling suddenly  

into dusk blue grass and the perfumed wailing

of the gnats; oh, don't you mind

I guess though it’s

not rounded off at the corners yet,

or cherrystone riddle unraveléd:

here’s my sour green apple, candied, shining

fizzled goodbye…

at the tip of what's not

possible to say.

I’m not that rock candy hard but this is

…like the last wind licked and tucked away beyond too soon

because the page is still strumming light

when angels on fresh apricot mandolins join in

and the song’s refrain

that we can’t hum is intricate as Kingdom Come

it’s:

maybe the music will not end

maybe the music will not end…

mary angela douglas 30 may 2012