[to Dylan Thomas and every dreaming child]
snow should fall like an eyelash from the moon
(that softly)
on the child reprimanded for dreaming;
made to stand in corners after school
for paying attention
to the spooling blue of the sky outside the window;
the waving trees. and you wave back in your greenery,
too, it seeming that important to acknowledge friends.
let peppermints spill out of the stockings
with the orange and appled profusion
you have merited early,
oh child like a silver riddle.
like an ivory eyelash from the moon.
swirling and swirling
thicker snows will come to you
and a violet noon from the vagrant poets
who can't misunderstand you.
hand in hand their angels sing
and they have set watch on you
and sent the feathery owl-wise snowflakes spiraling
like an eyelash from the moon forever and ever
where you will wander-
leaning into the icicled chiming and
tracing the traceries of the frost-made feasts
on All Souls' windowpanes;
stalwart in green and gold, remembered,
taking your stance against the vanishing
mary angela douglas 13 december 2013
