Sometimes May We Disappear

sometimes may we disappear
into the shade of cooling trees
that once we knew

in summers fringed beyond the golden.
in dreams of strawberries in the flecked cream
floating

on porches where the breezes gather mystically bestowing
mere hints of panoramic fairy tales unfolding,
the kaleidoscope turning,

and everything speaks to you, again:
the birds recounting their fables;
the cricket bordered twilights; the childlike

star fraught yearning
in stocking feet at the back screened doors...
oh may it not be said sweet child grown old

you ever wandered far from this
through all the darkened days the strange
bewildering absurdities and conjurations

of what is called the world.
you know and you knew then
the taste of Christmas snow cream

in the mouth, the dark green rivers
the ache and tangled drift  of vivid leaves
the inner playhouse, staunch, immune to war, disease

unaccountable separations!
still rosebud curtained as it was then
in the lollipop flavored after schools.

oh go within.
forget all this travail.
God keeps the veil over all you loved

and still you are there
regardless of the intervening years
and tears and byways unforseen.
you keep the green.
you keep the green.

mary angela douglas 6 april 2015