Beautiful Speech At The End Of The Beginning

[a commencement poem]

it wasn't as if we were waiting to know

the answer to the question: will green trees

gather snow? though now, the coming summers

show, gardenia on gardenia, the lavishness

of time and are you a rose set in green leaves

or all the roses heaped on the stage of this

departure?

I was the white of the flowering tree

outside the classrooms, under the blue;

the burnished leaf deconstructed, never.

and gold illumined me

and gold illumined you and you

and were we festooned with wide ribbons

as if for the bride's decor or were we, the brides

ourselves, the instruments of a coronation

of the moment, pausing in the archway-

effortless, dreamed...

holding the moment in her hands

she turned-

as if it were in flower

mary angela douglas 23 may 2014