To The Moonbyrd, Wandering

we will leave amethyst candies by the night porch

and further, if we may, beyond the moon-splashed grasses

stray for the moonbyrd who has flown high now

and lo! above the rose gardens,

gated in our sleep.

mystic mystic moonbyrd

pecking the peridot leaves off the trees

oh why have you gone

dressed up in chalks against the

purple impenetrable

backdrop, masquerade of our own summer night?

you will be lured by our candies anyhow, back to

your cage of light oh

moonbyrd, cousin of firebirds, trailing pure

rubied escapades, feathering the dream skies

or emerald sonorities, someone

else would have said.

I don't know them.

don't eat all the candy candy

sang someone's little brother

it's the bait but I said

it will be snowing candies, soon,

for the moonbyrd, don't you think?

in the prevailing winds

and it is nightfall and we miss the measured moonbyrd's 

blink of ancient rainbows, slowly revealed and we sing

old railroad songs and listen faintly

for the angel choirs who must know where you are,

echoing you back oh listen hard for

the particoloured shrieking of the gleaming moonbyrd

we stayed up late for, as if you were Christmas

we want you to

come home and live in our room.

cease foraging for meteors

by the coloured chalks scattered on

the floor and we will sing to you,

if we can, the sweet night through

and feed you the candies of pure goodness

truth and beauty.

drift in and out of sleep,

my wonder.

only you are free.

chalked in and out of sight not once demystified

we'll tread the angel lit hallways

back to sleep not tracking the mud

from the rosebeds, ever. dreaming,

my wonder, you are free

mary angela douglas 6-7 april 2014

Note on the Poem: I wrote this poem just minutes after seeing a lovely Academy Award (1959) cartoon

entitled "The Moonbird" (and then revised it seven times, you stubborn moonbyrd poem! And I am spelling it this way, the wrong way you maybe said but that I think is how the moonbyrd would spell it or the children, at least, in my poem who looked for it.  Call it a

variation if you want to, (variant?) spelling.  who knows.