You Will Learn

you will learn to read colours
and the faces of clocks
and trace the fairy rings

around the moon
and sing to your grandparents
in the living room

with your sister
and you in matching sashes
gingham taffeta

you will choose each year
the treetop instant:
angel or Star

and this will make you feel
like an important person;
and eat the ice cream with

the banana appeal, the Hershey's syrup
generously spilled on vanilla
hills in a little blue bowl;

the fields of whipped cream.

and it will seem
you never can grow old
to be held in such esteem

and then you will.
and dream one day
it all will start again

with the bread and butter pickles
on the sandwiches;
the rich piano sounds resounding.

and the late, late movies
when you got to stay up
because the next day wasn't school;

past your bedtime, child
and the very Christmas at the gates!

mary angela douglas 18 march 2016