Aubade In Autumn Remembered

migrations of the monarch or the amber ambient suns
that's you on the path where the bright leaves scatter
with your plaid lunch box, your plaid dress too

and new penny happy on your way to school,
to the farther land of stories. you may go
through gates without number in the unseen

thinking it's everyone feels this way
when the moon sways, Mother-Of-Pearl
between the minor branches

singing the shadows of leaves

or at home, with your honeycombed
toast and cocoa where the big picture
window smells like cold when you put your nose to it,

streaked with the dews
and suddenly it's Christmas you're
purely in love with:

the Royal reds and the greens heralding

the straw roofed nativity brought
down from the attic
and green is the very fragrance of Christmas

greenery and of a wondering sheen,

the linen skies that whisper "snow"
in your dreams and the flecked
tissue of a school costume.

later you learn the histories of the world.
but they will pale before these
maple avenues that you will keep

in ever cherishing conspiration:
you! and God's best angels,
oblivious through Time

to the pursed, sorry ravages of sleep:
shine and Shine in the
glitter of the far-away afternoons and the wind-stirred:

pristine, so many years after...

mary angela douglas 12 august 2015