Leave This Behind For the Children; Say I Was Kind

may you learn faster than we did
how fast Time can run off the pages of your readers
trailing a scarlet vine

leaving the winds in its wake and
you can wake to find all fairy tales departed.
oh my hearts, my valentines

outstretched, your hands in winter time I see
where the windows have vanished where
your coloured pencils shone

on little portraits taped there and the glow of them
more than stained glass
what is the past did any child ever ask did we even

hear the word or were our ears stopped up with snow
by our better angels pending the time to go

mary angela douglas 4 april 2016