You Had A Locket And An Antique Smile

you had a locket and an antique smile

a way of turning your head in the shade

fading into the green

you had a ring of milky jade

a doorbell chime like a carillon

it seemed to me then

a smile like crushed pink

seashells.

I remember.

no one will say that what I

remember is true.

no one will come to the wedding

after all this time:

looping the ribbons of pearl

to good effect

under the one rose window remaining.

but you had a locket and an

antique smile.

what did they have

mary angela douglas 31 august 2012

The Latest Dulac Illustrations

[to Edmund Dulac ]

spooning out the ambrosia of late afternoon

for the stepsisters’ snack, so

unexpectedly

Cinderella spilled the sunlight on

the floor and was reprimanded.

later, in moonlight, after they’d gone,

fluttering their rococo fans

way off in a lavendered distance-

while sweeping up the crumbs

of a frilled disdain that lingered…

she heard enchantment’s music rise

turning her blue gown roseate on the instant.

spun out on  a dewdrop’s galaxy alone-

alone-

pure gladness danced on a bird note-call

(bright pomegranate, after all)

from the mystically star-showered gardens

perfectly rendered

mary angela douglas 27 august 2012

• 
  

Mermaid Pearled On The Parquet Prismed Sea Floor

could unaccustomed radiance be returning?

you asked yourself

at the intersection

of so much green in the tidal pools

with your reverie of

the strawberry moon.

maybe it’s not that far away

murmured the captain so

near the golden iceburg,

veering off-course.

a child just waking up too fast half

saw the laddered moonlight

reaching into far angels;

Rilke, at his ease, and freed from the

nervous tea party with Edith Wharton

in her new rose rapture of a hat Henry James

failed to notice at dinner. 

among far rosebuds, nectar bright,

when will we be home I

wondered, not for the first time ever

rinsing the frothy whitecaps out

of a Sunday night’s kitchen sink-

mary angela douglas 26 august 2012

And If God Drops Us Down A Golden

and if God drops us down a golden

well, still He is the one retrieving

us and

we will shine

I sang to the golden air so late it seemed

in blooming on the Tree of Years-

and if the seams of the stars split

open just as you begin to see

so that you no longer find

your violet footing in the dark

still it is you in the Perseid showers or something else

illumined-

and no one else

and you will shine even

lost amid bright disasters unfolding you

unfortunate fortunate one

where He is making more

more light more

light

mary angela douglas 25 august 2012

Note From Home, Years Later, In Reply To A Note From School

[to my mother and my grandmother,  for perfect understanding]

we were the ones who look for faery gold

for the sheen on the petals that’s scarcely there

but breathtaking when you find it.

there is the maiden on her way

to draw bright waters from the springs,

glad to be out of the house for a day,

(though gladder, still, within it)

on a summer’s day with a breeze-

with the lilting trees leafing over

a something lovelier, greener,

than any green you may have seen

over a lifetime’s cawing, dissatisfied-

with an enchantment that won’t wear thin for you…

there is the maiden returning home

with pailfuls of stars and rich with berries

and kept inside and home from school

well past these many

Septembers scudding violets through

the lavish clouds-upon-clouds:

so that no one in the unanimous classrooms’ ever-after

or on the job, red-pencil ready-

slamming the tea-kettle down a little too hard on the trivet-

could be offended again or call to complain  

the sweet next day and the next, even sweeter

about the faery symphonies pouring

heedlessly, heart-first-

indelible beauty from our blind windows…

then, caught in a may basket, excitedly pinned with Grandmother’s

pearly hat pins (only two of them, Grandmother)  and

pinkly offered up last Monday for Show-and-Tell…

and the exquisite secret my mother kept for me

my whole life long that I learned from that given hour

not yet to tell

(translated for this latter-day song),

I fold and fling to you now-

adown!  a paper airplane current’s turquoise

so that you may have it, too, a little tardily:

speak in diamonds, never toads

speak in diamonds, never toads

speak.

in diamonds. so that God may hear you…

mary angela douglas 6 august 2012