White Jade

[translated from assorted baby languages…]

to P.L. Travers for her chapter  “John and Barbera”

in Mary Poppins… (I did not forget)

he said I have a pearl-handled stillness

to sell you, clocks with vanilla moons and

suns inlaid.

curious bubble-gum emerald

no, amethyst rings in just your size;

broken glass from the gumball machine.

a Cracker Jack prize.

a few chess pieces under a valentine sky

on tracing paper;

an eggbeater churning the colours in the clouds.

the maps where silvered ships slipped through

and no one drowned.

striped candy.

a rhymed song merrily sung. and cherrily.

peachly. plum.

the wind through wild grasses; gift-wrapped,

the jeweled meridians…choose.

I said I’m in a painting by Currier and Ives;

the sky’s forever lemon, streaked with violet jam

when what I really want is the Impressionists-

and to live in a thatched house

arranging the lilacs forever in a pale blue vase

that doesn’t tip over.

but already the hour glass is breaking apart-

so that I’m the one and only

sifting these pink sands-

hauling this jar of peach bright pennies home  

and shaking the glass globe

twice on Sundays

so that snowfall

swirls, still-somewhere, in the world.

and this is for the last ones in the Park

who forgot to wave as I

rounded their corner-

too sequined-charming or bundled up

to know that some choice diamonds

leaves and flowers go

never snagging at all

the glint of lilac  

in the snow child’s snood…

where are they? did they break my heart?

or are they wreathed forever in an enchanted wood.

there God is. He won’t topple over.

soon you may want nothing but melting, too.

moire endpapers rose-threaded through-

for the white jade fairytales

you can’t read yet

(whispered my Mother filtering

sunlight through the trees…)

mary angela douglas 15, 19, 21, 24 june 2012

Particoloured Tears Are Falling Through The Evening, Blind (Elegy for Ray Bradbury)

Particoloured Tears Are Falling Through The Evening Blind

[small prelude on the pianoforte, for Ray Bradbury, gone:
August 22, 1920 - June 5, 2012]

oh all the rainbows have fallen into the earth, headfirst-
and "snow without Christmas" as he cried
has stunned his sometimed midnight’s
sunned chorales.

but even now-
when the first curled hand bell of grief is chimed, at times, 
magnolia creamery of the long before,

you’re still in business
on the ivory keys of snow-coned
pages turning in the lock

or filtering round pure
apricot sparkles down
oh God knows how-

my shuttered April mind.
it’s wondering I dream to find
no new poet laureate of the homesick, but

distraught cloud horses whinnying on their own in
folds of cerulean, coral, forestalled-
with storied apples offered: oh wrought of a banished gold

(as they are now)-
to keep them home.

the day wears on. we won’t know clearly now
when dark ferrised earth kept turning into...
blossom ladened trees renew their snow

and petal the sweetheart mourning: morning
minstrelsy is dead throughout the vacant orchards but is she
pale pink surprised into carmine

by valentines received
in the afternoon mail
from one thought dead…?

while we as we behold through a looking glass
pinhole in the constellations:
his ice-cream coloured trollies

hauling back and forth
new circuses of sighs and working prisms-
(dewdrop, listen, he whispered so we

wouldn’t forget you ever-
or children would just let go and all at the same time,
their last balloons losing everything then:

(it felt that way, to them)

It’s got to be now on Opal Rails
somewhere else, going on.
couch this in bluebirds and hydrangeas
and cool cups of lilied moonlight on the grass
of other planets looking just like home

held higher above our heads than these dreams
have ever been before: long
past the vast pinwheeled parades of
the strolling musicians,

musicless on earth;

but not where motley is torn-
its falling its falling through the evening blind
and near our particoloured tears, unending
for the something unsurpassed

and all, all-in-all at last-
caught by a weeping God in a ruby red bottle-
the best firefly of the whole Summer-

mary angela douglas 14 june 2012 1:49 p.m.

Even Late In the Day It Was Comforting To Think

[for Ray Bradbury in memorium (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012)]

Even late in the day it was comforting to think

You were still out there in California

Holed up in your toyshop basement

Writing another sheaf of them

Golden, amber, green or blue

Radiant royal blue or violet

Scarlet rarer than rare.

Oh send me down a dandelion wind

I don’t want to think that this has ended.

Surely some mistake was made.

He died quietly last night his publisher said.

Why didn’t we wake up and stop him?

Don’t go Ray, we’d plead holding his

Lovely shadow back as if he were Peter Pan.

Don’t go yet.

Tell us another story

Like children cranky before bedtime;

That’s why it happened when we were asleep.

Besides, the angels have story-times, too.

They needed him longer.

I’m sure they brought him ice cream.

That did it. I’ll bet it was cherry-vanilla…

Venus in transit was seen from Tahiti

The radio said linking it in the next breath to

Bradbury’s gone.

(Is he on Venus? In Tahiti? I thought like

One of his stories unfolding…

Myself. By myself. Oh, gone…)

At 11:02 I was at home

Drinking coffee peaceful and dreamy

Halfway listening to radio news.

The author Ray Bradbury has died at 91

I heard at 11:03 a.m., it’s Wednesday, June 6^th.

I couldn’t believe it. D-Day for all the writers now

Left still on earth and the dear readers too.

Why couldn’t we hear the trumpets?

Oh I would like to break off my sprig of lilac

For you like Whitman for Lincoln

But I am only I and can’t stop crying

And I don’t want to say goodbye.

How will the Summer survive?

Having lost the one who loved her most sincerely.

If only we had those magical tennis shoes to follow

You, where you are now…

But we must wait like you, for Appointed Times…

Or stories…for the wings of clouded poems

To arrive, oh are you listening?

Did you arrive yet. Why are the skies so grey.

Here is my sprig of lilac anyway.

Is that you passing by?

Did you come back for your files?

The ones you kept for years bursting open at the seams and

perpetually sprung-open with ideas

For stories to come.

For the stories to come…

We are bereaved.

Green trees in the rain touch over the antique streets

Green trees in the rain can’t stop weeping

And Venus in transit stops for a moment, overcome-

And the simple stars – sing-

mary angela douglas 6 june 2012 8:03 p.m.