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.