All Beauty Was A Doorway Into God

["Music, breathing of statues, perhaps..."

-Rainer Maria Rilke]

[to the memory of my sister and I playing swing-a-statue

in the dew bright grass.  Just before supper...

[for MBY and LWY, the "Grown-ups" in this Play]

all Beauty was a doorway into God:

the latch that chimed, the secret Spring in winter's hues

the hidden passageways we knew, the playhouse played

whose brick was laid so well where few could see

its lemon candied Sun above

when we came home from school; new jump rope rules;

the small room colored in, pale blue

the wind that sailed the cherry petals

sown and just as you were taking your first steps

in a sunshine ruffled gown near the Rose Garden

(and with a pink parasol, balancing.)

or watching a Grown-up pull the taffy of a smile from you

by winding up the pull-toy moon or

showing you the latest lady bug perched

dilly down down from a Grown-up's point of view

with its own cuticle moon rising or setting.

or on a slender thread of grass as dear

as the orange nasturtium we loved.

enchantment only grew and grew

when measuring the birthday shadow of a dream

that flickered when you blew the candles out

on the rose crowned cakes.  year on shining year

what was it whispered in your ear, oh, stay...

now they want Change:  too chic, too late

to find the doorway or the gate, the baby star

the thistledown sigh

and Poetry is run off in a ditch-

I don't know why

and the apricot cupolas singed

on every fairy tale page.

and those who talk among the stars

or feel they do, are half in love

with only Magnitude-
and miss, sheer Light

misreading the music as the end

of the One who made it shine in them

on all those peerless afternoons

mary angela douglas 7, 8, 10 february 2013