To Tulip Beds In All Colours

to tulip beds in all colours

we wanted to travel

as though the world were

storybook painted

page by page

and so we read.

and breathed in golden apples

fireworks flocking over the castles,

the orange blossomed things they said

by indefatigable fountains.

and hardly dared breathe out

because of beauty, clouding there 

and all mapped out beside the

king's pear trees or we were revelers ever

of imprinted Christmas never

going away and side-by-side

our childhood's shelves displayed

the summer round-de-lays

the princess in her towers

the mystic hours, chiming we knew not how

faint music of all we felt before

yet could not name

left to our own rose
see-saw bright devices

the wind-up, toylike scheme.

oh roundelay rose or roundelay Noel!
when we stayed Home from school a little unwell

outside though thunder snows arose

mere History stirred

and barely gleamed.
while we saw dragons in the steam
above the buttered lakes of oatmeal.

mary angela douglas 7 march 2015