Because You Believed That Light Would Always Linger

[for Sharon, my sister...]

because you believed that light would always linger
even in the nocturnes that you played
and that the piano was an instrument of the sun

of long summers and not the one of tear streaked
windowpanes, incessant rain
I prayed for you that the angels of music

would not depart from your side.
that the earliest stories whispered among the roses
would come back to you

and the mockingbirds flit as once they did
through our familiar trees and
then that the magnolia would bloom

and pearl bright perfume fill the rooms
and candles appear on the rose tiered cakes
and that the linen winds rustling the trees outside

your windows would remind you
that life, pure life, is still
transparent, pear delighting

tinged with the rose and gold
sheer shadows on
the colour green

and still and still
your own

mary angela douglas 13 april 2015