Brocade

"the poetry of earth is never dead.'

-John Keats

[for my mother Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas]

you were the jewel set in the roseate ballet perhaps

the princess at christening under the pink veils

the tiara's flash glimpsed from the balconies: 

what snow could dream if

snow dreamed now that everything's

en pointe and vanishing: (to be

pineapple sherbet scooped from the moon

by children surprised at the

lemon layered birthdays)  

have april snows answered a pale green summons? 

why, where is the gleam of earth disappearing to

said the teachers plainly mocking our surmise and far

from the blush rose words they have sifted out of everywhere before distracted minds could sense-

that captive beauty in the closet with the mops, 

the confiscated lollipops, smuggled fruit chews-

was being punished through the classroom day

and only for shining.

is light reduced then. is time, is dreaming gone

with the apple pie fractions filed away

fled is song the way it was known

flown without icarus bright without

the suns ah, canceled flights: 

o rose coronas crated, shipped

out of here by the laconic half-hired herds-

they see us as, but we do not-

though it feels, almost, overnight

the banded rainbows break apart

for words in the weeping spectrum: 

say goodbye to your sisters, 

indigo, cream yellow, shimmering

cherry and lime while violet sighs while orange

commiserates with tangerine

ah not for long in party dress

it seems, and never again? 

it's back to work 

where the hourglass tips on its side

bleeding soft ochre sands of the sunsets

on our shifts; the ones we've missed

when the flowers girls in mauve

scattered the last of the petaled weddings,

are we madrigal-silenced by the coteries?

or is this where the princess kneels

slipping the golden ring down

the orchid ripples of the ancient spring

no one knows the way to anymore.

o lore lock stocked and barreled away

His tropical isotopes

His sequined kaleidoscopes

by the inescapably-in-command-

how long will lost worlds waken to poetry where

men who were scarcely poets mark 'discard'

on every apricot delectable word He spoke us into: 

coining His opal skies, His illimitable

freedom the sweet great magic trick of a World? 

ah but who will diagnose, and hurl

forever from our sight to any prison dark consign

His watershed crystals done by nightfall

coded in currant inks and torn with the soul from

the spiraling notebooks 

vast collations of His heart abandoned

just-in-time my radiance, 

buried in deep space through filmy sleep we fine no

blueprints of the apple orchard years

and dare to breathe: 

is this His lilac wishing frozen in reserve? 

spare parts of birdsong, the pastel chalked repose, 

love tunes ruby caged, old mechanical

valentines with clasped posies in

no disappearing whir, beyond disapprobation: 

the extra geranium crayon in the Art box

stashed with all our raspberry velocipedes, 

missing maple leaves and drenching pearls from

the water-falling screens, the iridescence once

we lived in, didn't we? embroidered greens and golds

flowed from our shoulders, hints of a robined sky, as yet 

unrolled new seed beds of His exceeding floweriness

for just such emergencies as these! 

all the Easter dyes! cupboards of coconut from the 

candied citadels of infinite Stories- 

my child, my own and queen of the cordial cherries

all milk weed spoked and spoken now: 

keep, oh keep! their delicate parachutes into Summer.

coated in grey ash, we have retrieved

our sparkling King.

though we were whittled down.

all winter long

the little cakes managed with the

last of the raisins-

better than a score of frosted

sugar eggs holding the pale pink rose garden

(one tiny rose)  

of the world's wordiest princess.

under a brand new moon-

lick the Spoon! 

mary angela douglas 27 september 2014 rev. 3 nov. 2014