[in memoriam to Don Featherstone, the artist who invented
the pink plastic lawn flamingo]
we never thought that someone made them,
pinkly ubiquitous as they always were
coral summers long
I remember them
in a memory box stashed: shoebox? pencil case?
along with pink sugar, pink glitter,
pink stucco, turquoise afternoons;
Pink Erasers, Don't Erase This!
the sharp scent of chlorinated pools
the fishnet gold of filtering light
on the surface of backyard waters.
pinkly we splashed in our inflatable pool
also plastic, cream yellow rimmed
with dark blue whales, the friendly kind.
maybe on bookjacket covers
you were perched;
on summer reading from
The Weekly Reader Book Club:
strange imitation bird
immovable on the lawns in season
out of season hard as rock candy
we thought you were
though we never tested it,
linked to our braclet happiness
as little girls as the idea of
pink stucco motels were
we must have seen sometime, somewhere,
with an intake of baby breath
equivalent to Christmases with pink angels,
pink flocked trees.
or as spun glass, (cotton candy, spun),
whirling, furling in a little world
while we chanted: "Run Spot Run"
in the humid classrooms and
had so much fun with
the after school hula hoops;
bubbles we construed with
the plastic bubble wand, that pink, there! we said
and pointed, next to the green
just as it popped or pop tarts strawberry
popped out of the toasters simultaneously
somewhere as melting began on the pink sands
of time, our Time gilding corrugated cardboard starlight
for the School Plays...
and this is a coral sea we pointed to the maps
we only saw on TV in a pirate scene from Disney just as
strawberry ice cream dissolved in the dish
you began to say:
goodbye! oh pink deliciousness
of Florida or beyond which always
made me think distractedly of orangeade
in the shade of
orange groves; their pictures in The
National Geographic.
forgive me if I'm feeling today a kind of
marigold sadness, gladness at the same
time, flowery, bitter zinnia, weed scented:
we never knew they had gone out of favor.
or that they were even invented.
today it was on the news. today they said
the flamingo maker was dead and I
thought I saw the same violet shadows of 1963
waver, then flare up for a moment
as this kaleidoscopic train pulled out of the station...
for a private, grieving nation little understood
summer child country...honey coloured darker
and deeper and richer evermore
where we rolled the board game dice or sipped thickly
regretfully the milkshake's straw, wishing it could last,
the glorious instant, reveling and revealed: to me! to me!
their unflappable rosiness
on the lawns of Paradise
mary angela douglas 23 june 2015
the pink plastic lawn flamingo]
we never thought that someone made them,
pinkly ubiquitous as they always were
coral summers long
I remember them
in a memory box stashed: shoebox? pencil case?
along with pink sugar, pink glitter,
pink stucco, turquoise afternoons;
Pink Erasers, Don't Erase This!
the sharp scent of chlorinated pools
the fishnet gold of filtering light
on the surface of backyard waters.
pinkly we splashed in our inflatable pool
also plastic, cream yellow rimmed
with dark blue whales, the friendly kind.
maybe on bookjacket covers
you were perched;
on summer reading from
The Weekly Reader Book Club:
strange imitation bird
immovable on the lawns in season
out of season hard as rock candy
we thought you were
though we never tested it,
linked to our braclet happiness
as little girls as the idea of
pink stucco motels were
we must have seen sometime, somewhere,
with an intake of baby breath
equivalent to Christmases with pink angels,
pink flocked trees.
or as spun glass, (cotton candy, spun),
whirling, furling in a little world
while we chanted: "Run Spot Run"
in the humid classrooms and
had so much fun with
the after school hula hoops;
bubbles we construed with
the plastic bubble wand, that pink, there! we said
and pointed, next to the green
just as it popped or pop tarts strawberry
popped out of the toasters simultaneously
somewhere as melting began on the pink sands
of time, our Time gilding corrugated cardboard starlight
for the School Plays...
and this is a coral sea we pointed to the maps
we only saw on TV in a pirate scene from Disney just as
strawberry ice cream dissolved in the dish
you began to say:
goodbye! oh pink deliciousness
of Florida or beyond which always
made me think distractedly of orangeade
in the shade of
orange groves; their pictures in The
National Geographic.
forgive me if I'm feeling today a kind of
marigold sadness, gladness at the same
time, flowery, bitter zinnia, weed scented:
we never knew they had gone out of favor.
or that they were even invented.
today it was on the news. today they said
the flamingo maker was dead and I
thought I saw the same violet shadows of 1963
waver, then flare up for a moment
as this kaleidoscopic train pulled out of the station...
for a private, grieving nation little understood
summer child country...honey coloured darker
and deeper and richer evermore
where we rolled the board game dice or sipped thickly
regretfully the milkshake's straw, wishing it could last,
the glorious instant, reveling and revealed: to me! to me!
their unflappable rosiness
on the lawns of Paradise
mary angela douglas 23 june 2015
