In October, Commemorating Ray

(For Ray Bradbury


always we banked on another sunflower sun beside

a timeless river of stories

or the green one

with the pop up trees

the thinness of oxygen on other planets

yet, the rustling of leaves.


through the drear trees

another race run

in orange October finely spun

poster board orange shouting


I am the one

the one with all the stories

bursting out of pockets, old lockets

the closets stashed with them

the fireworked Rockets;


making hash posthaste

never to waste the Sun


getting it all down

the cosmic reporter. back in town

back with the story, that's him

grinning that grin

gulping hot dogs, washed down with

fountain sodas

any modus operandi you have ever heard of,

forget it. Bradbury's got his own

his very own carnival, circus train


arriving at 3 a.m. with the elephants, the mystical elephants

the dinosaurs bewitched by foghorns


go twirl the dark green dial back the

leatherette luncheonette stools

the ceiling fans unwinding summers slowly



so that you taste again the potato salad, cherry phosphate

nobody makes like that anymore the fried doughnuts


and you are out the door in brand new tennis shoes

racing with the leaves



across the lawns of the Carnegie library

breathing in all the book fragrances

as if there had been

some harvest of gold.o keeping the spell


of all the stories ever told you,

you would ever tell.



mary angela douglas 4 october 2018