[to Ray Bradbury again-
on the second anniversary of his disappearance
and to his daughters who heard it all, first,
I am sure...]
our carnival glass collections shine
the ones that you've left far behind
a bit more fragile than they used to be
now that Jupiter is setting, Mars grows dim
and more dim by the day:
faint rose under intergalactic snows
perhaps you'd say were you still
here to care that
October's leaves fly up again.
a mist comes to the eyes, unsolicited.
I reread old stories, each time, new-
eating my candy corn way through them-
and caramel apples, if I could.
four sisters beneath a parfait moon:
a story for each! pink, green or blue...
raspberry raspberry; lemonade,
drink every drop, it's poured for you-
but it's a long way back to and farther,
under the shade of fading lamplight, than winter constellations in the spring.
they are glazed with lillac leaves so
heart-shaped-
from the great distances, recalled...
bring on a stage set of clapboard houses
painted in cheerful colours, shielded by old trees,
eaves of Victorian gingerbread; porch glider ease,
screen doors banging in the veiling rains
that inexplicably come up whenever we breathe
your name: a flash of tender lightning in the skies.
we'd have larders like the ones you're used to:
brimmed with powdered doughnuts, cider,
cakes in every flavor and hue
(the many layered);
dandelion wine stocked
in the cellar, 1922.
bicycle, ice-cream bells; brand new,
the spring-fed summer tennis shoes
pavement, back lot splendid
mad weathervanes spinning in a copper green dusk
before the circus storms-
and right next door, a bookstore with rare editions,
Poe and Dickens. who else?
you! and Margery trailing her Combray,
it's so becoming, in the original.
she's in pink organdie
with a picture hat
and posies.
across the street, an ice cream shoppe
with twirling stools of green leatherette;
old fans whirring from the ceilings.
one scoop or two?
I know the malted answer.
clark bars by the score we'd scatter
on all our door steps
and sing halloween songs
even out of tune
and launch a million fire balloons
in just your favorite colours
all around the world
if only you'd come back, Ray-
wreathed in Glory-
to visit us with one more story.
mary angela douglas 5 june 2014;rev. 6 june 2014
Note on the poem of course some details in this poem
are from Ray's own stories, and biographies (see especially, Sam Weller's incredible biography, The Bradbury Chronicles, The Life of Ray Bradbury: Predicting the Past, Remembering the Future, the most beautiful biography of anyone I have ever read.
The image of the neighborhood stage set in my poem did appear in one or more of his stories - that idealized stage set of his Waukegan Illinois childhood home... mysteriously present even in his stories and novels where it isn't directly referenced.
But that is the point:
to lure the poet-storyteller back one more time with t he
golden bait of his own stories, (and promises of ice cream)
back for just a little while to tell us just one more...
P.S. The astronomical details drifted in and out of my sleep last night around 3: a.m. while dreaming/listening to John
Grayson's radio show Overnight America. He was hosting
a guy from astronomy magazine (astronomy.com) who was
giving incredible upcoming astronomical forecasts and I
woke up completely thinking how wonderful to hear and
thought immediately of the time two years ago when cbs
radio announced (among others) that Venus was in transit
as Ray Bradbury died.
About the halloween songs, I don't think there are any.
somebody make one up real quick for the occasion...a friendly one with apple cake and pumpkin coloured stars
all over it. (maybe one cat)
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Other poems I have dedicated to Bradbury include:
Particoloured Tears Are Falling Through the Evening Blind
(an elegy written shortly after he died on June 5, 2012)
Welcome, Ray Bradbury, to Your First October in Heaven
To the Poet on the Island of Fire Marshals
and Even Late in the Day, It Was Comforting to Think
(the poem I wrote the day his death was announced)
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