Kitchen Conversation With Auntie Em

in every version of the fairy tale you read
some one will come to lay the kindling
when there is none; to sort the clouds

out when there is no sun.
to chime the bells that can't be rung
that fall apart in your hands.

geographies of distant lands
some kingdoms never come and
it hurts the same when you fall

down as it did then,Dorothy: now
when you lose ground or
time or space.

you're not a tree with roots
in some dear place that won't
let go.

you have to face it sometime
when you've boarded up for
the last time against the storm

that wasn't meant to come.

there's no velocity in this
complained her soul
harping on an old theme

not so angels could hear
in their hairpin turns
back to the old neighborhood.

I know I know my mother
said from heaven but
you still can sing

if you want to.

mary angela douglas 13 may 2015