Evenings at Home In-Between The Floods

evenings at home, in-between the Floods.

I remember the tremulous lamplight, vanilla bright

spilling on the rugs such richness and the walls;

the coloured bulbs at Christmas and the revolving year.

the off-times, when we vacate the world

that shoved us into schoolrooms, office-work, or worse-

the latest styles or what we think we wore

while accustomed to the fragrance of the SuperMart;
the patio gardens. the days waning thin as
the frail tissue of the sewing patterns
we never mastered really.
the floraled shirtwaist schemes.

now more than ever the vividness returns

and seems, more real than it did then even down to

the hushed feelings- no clicks of the dialed black phone-

as Time, as they say, stood still:
a dab of perfume on its fairytale wrists

so that the evergreens are no longer distant,

the ones we played under.

the glazed porches.

let's go inside when our noses are like cherries
where the orange spiced pomanders abide,
the fluffy dog holiday sparkling:
all pom pom tailed, applause meter racing.

and where no ratios undermine
our peppermint dreaming;
where the carefully stenciled posters
winning no prize but

the freedom of finished homework hide and the

Cantique de Noel unwinds; all the wonders unwrapped.

and are there more when all this vanishing

comes to call, ringing the familiar doorbell?

stashed behind the Tree and silvery as the next Hill

the gifts that we forgot

are waiting still

mary angela douglas 1 january 2015