Composition

you could see them if you tried harder.
you used to when you were less wise
see angels in every disguise,

towers in clouds
believing in great surprises
slow at learning to tell Time so

that it could always, suddenly
be Christmas
in the sheer middle of the day.

all the arbors were yours
to see and to say
even without putting too fine

a point on it
penciling the daydreams in

you could write in gold of the let's pretend
the block letters before you were told
it was just an exercise

torn out of a piffling notebook
with your little  name scrawled in the right hand corner.

you were not wise, they said and how would you get ahead
who thought each letter was a garden;
every word,

a rose composed.

mary angela douglas 30 september 2017