Oh To Dress In Crisp Cottons, The August Percales

oh to dress in crisp cottons, the august percales
in the withering heat
to dab on gardenia perfume surreptitiously

only because you feel you are a flower

and hour by hour to read the summer paperback
adventure picked out from the school catalog
to watch the lawn grow until

grandfather mows it down
goodbye to the clover beds then
and the feeling that our yard could

grow to be a field.
how much we loved the summers then
the being at home between school years

and then the fluttering feeling and
the fluttering leaves as though they were
in sympathy at every

first day of school in the brand new plaid.
I want to go back to the past and
learn it all again in fresh notebooks

ruled paper in a colorful binder
dawns as milk

bright as country snow before the bus came
only this time without worrying.
and wear small velvet bows

that clip on in the shade of lime green
and curl my hair again in an old fashioned style
dreaming of nothing feeling that time was an ocean

billowing before us
blue as any sky 
when seen from that great distance

and beside the guardian trees.

mary angela douglas 18 may 2017