Who's Running These Carnival Shows

[to Robert Frost

and to my Grandfather-]

who's running these carnival shows a

someone wanted to know

who walked through a door marked Poetry

in golden typescript, transom pretty. freshly painted, too.

Oh will it make me smaller? queried Alice

her eyes brand new.

No. only everything you were before you came here.

and what was there before? said another.

some old hardware store that sold odd

carriages, nuts and bolts for the universe

and the farm communities.

Do your duty! said the country.

write it all.

we did on paper airplanes floating through school

halls or in the snow, in angel format

Christmas wild. o child.

don't go there.  anyone can take a name
and put a shingle out though

behind the door are polka dots and clowns.

sad scavengers.

Poetry's in the grasslands running free

where no one needs to know if it's famous;

only God.

who singing's for, and liberty-

when it comes to it.

mary angela douglas 30 july 2014;29 january 2015