Grandmother, In The Evening

when you cry and it isn't funny
and then Grandmother plays
her glass record of Pagliacci

and looking back you say
there were so many epic
moments in the yellow kitchen

when she came in momentarily to say
sit straight up in your chairs
so you won't get bad posture

and tomorrow is another day or
to quote Rupert Brooke:
these things have I loved.

with a far away look in her eyes...

like the girl in Our Town
that beatific play
you want to go back 

and stay and stay
and memorize the shadows
in the living room

and resume life back then
practicing the measure
on the piano

From the beginning
go back to the beginning
she'd always say

tuned to your practice
with her piano teacher's ear and
do not fear He will take

care of you
come what may
she sang that lullaby

to you each day
in the old rocking chair
in the room with the rose printed curtains

splashed in fuschia on a cream background
and pale green walls the green of memory
as if we lived inside a rose garden.

and we were the roses...

truly to leave there
was like leaving Paradise
and dusk coming down

as though forever
casting us all in blue..

mary angela douglas  20 october 2017