perhaps they think we have forgotten
those passages where mignonette blooms
on dresses of pale blue silk
where people confer over great or small matters
keeping their distance.
where a letter can spell doom
a gesture, finality.
the sound of carriage wheels speed happiness,
a fireside out of the rains.
perhaps the flower pressed into a book
would live again
the margins begin to snow...
blow the dust off your indifference
and let the old novels
glow
said a ministering angel once
where you almost lingered
in an out of the way shop.
isn't it enough to know
they lived once, and wrote and wrote
all this at times without a drop of mercy
shown to them
and isn't it amiss we have left
their gardens alone
and left their heroines adrift
their heroes far from home
because we are modern.
and do not know
what we do not know.
mary angela douglas 11 march 2017
those passages where mignonette blooms
on dresses of pale blue silk
where people confer over great or small matters
keeping their distance.
where a letter can spell doom
a gesture, finality.
the sound of carriage wheels speed happiness,
a fireside out of the rains.
perhaps the flower pressed into a book
would live again
the margins begin to snow...
blow the dust off your indifference
and let the old novels
glow
said a ministering angel once
where you almost lingered
in an out of the way shop.
isn't it enough to know
they lived once, and wrote and wrote
all this at times without a drop of mercy
shown to them
and isn't it amiss we have left
their gardens alone
and left their heroines adrift
their heroes far from home
because we are modern.
and do not know
what we do not know.
mary angela douglas 11 march 2017
