Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Out Here On A Limb For You

[to Eugene Field, again]

out here on a limb for You,
the gold and scarlet fruit
cascades to the ground

in fairytale shimmering surplus
is it nowhere to be found
when babies crawl to the keyhole

bawling, this was yesterday-
bereft of the sugar-cakes with the tiny pink roses,
inconsolably...?

don't cry, don't
granules of the sun shine down so lemonly upon you;
do not stray from the woodland paths to pick the bright 


flowers, though I know you'll want to:
in your red velvet, velvetly caped
and the becoming (hand-stitched) hood-

embroidered with pale roses.
and in the basket, depending which version you read,
is a mound of butter that somehow never melts 

ineffably fine white rolls and ligonberry jam
and it's midsummer midsummer midsummer
in a far off land

where children are not vocationally steered or
sorted out for the space programs, or manufactured for
the pianofortes-

but where they colour wildly so that the rainbows
weep profusely

mary angela douglas 21 august 2013



  

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