Wednesday, September 19, 2018

The Jeweled Way Is Gone

maybe holy angels then inspired us
building up our defenses of beauty
against the cruelties lapping at our door

this was what the grownups called playing.
with all conceivable blocks we built the playhouse
the one we would live in evermore

when the storms came battering
the trick or treat scares,
silos for the candy corn.

Ive thought a lot about it
how the green trees made our grove
long after the leaves, even the trees

were felled.
and how the wishing wells in the picture books
looked so realistic

we believed in so much then.
now I think of little children
little children in school

day by day forced to call it the environment
when for us it was the faery woods.
what is gained I wonder

stripping the branches bare of the gold leaf
the veins of gold, the ramifications
and the ramparts too

of invisible kingdoms.
the jeweled way of measuring the worlds.

mary angela douglas 19 september2018