Elegance

[to Lucy W. Young, my grandmother]

she will fix you tomato consomme
when you are sick
and the way she says it

you just know
it's something elegant
and it's the elegance

that makes you well;
the way she dresses her grandchildren
for the recitals,

always in pink, sometimes with rosebuds embroidered
and a wrist corsage of pink and cream carnations.
they will play nocturnes, vintage pieces

and the notes falling through the air
with an unmatched delicacy
because she teaches them that way

as though music were the snowflakes
driven in by crystal winds to desolate porches
or the sun,

melting all the gold on earth.

mary angela douglas 27 july 2016