Sleep Under The Rose Coverlet Still

[in honor of Hans Anderson’s “Thumbelina”,a birthday lullaby from her Mother]

sleep under the rose coverlet still,

tiny creation of His kindest mind.

blue violet are the skies above your dream.

though silken too,

snowflakes won’t discover you in the tiny walnut cradle,

cradlesong

sleep under the rose red coverlet still

and do not dream you will ever be distressed.

and you will row in a boat with slenderest filaments

especially at Christmas-

across a crystal finger bowl propelled

where pomegranate paper flowers unfold

out-gliding harm or

under the saving grace of Disregard in the silver pail

you’re frothing on and

rainbow-winking off as the brim of the clabbered

buttermilk, my only child.

how did you do that?

shine pinkly in your cirrus dress, apart-

in early spring.

my valentine’s unsent since undetected

think the Neighbor’s, peering into the Flour;

I keep you in the canister of my heart.

you hide in a buttercup, believing it’s the sun

or cartwheel, music box spinning, broken off

snip snap little butter bean from the vine

in a shred of tulle so sugar cube bright oh

don't dissolve...

from the rag bag of a Princess passing through

impoverished, but kind, one summer afternoon;

eating her last strawberries delicately

and whipping that skirt up just for you.

see the cunning golden stitch that’s running through the

pale peach cummerbund?

you wander seamlessly through the Throng

my sweetling, unperturbed near the Cobblestone Feet with marching orders or

fern by treelike fern at home, you entertain disconsolate gloworms

with something short, from Mendelssohn; then biding

in the rain the burghers Scurry from

you will extract the jeweled detail of a miniature sheen

for the gallery of a flea, well-known;

you’ll be

the freest artisan of all lacelike dot of a bride not even

bought with a penny at the Fair but cast aside

(thank God)

by the tyrannous gimlet Eye as one

too small to organize

mary angela douglas 12 october 2012