WHERE WE LIVE

where we live.

as children, at the North Pole

though we are always warm

the way the Match Girl was,

glimpsing visions in the briefest flame

or in story books, in out of the way nooks

making up our own names

as long as the teachers don't scold

and send us out to be clinically examined

standing us up

in the corner with Cinderella

as if we were their dolls.

daydreaming being now an aberration

in our scientific nation

unless we dream of numbers, data.

of flat ironed information and of

having a professional demeanor.

what could be meaner. but

we live in a country all our own.

at the corner, with an apple tree, a playhouse

set for tea even when we're grown.

and a tree swing, pushed by God alone.

into His clouds.

we're always shifting the scenery

before it gets shifted for us

and in our own Play, where the courtiers adore us

in our shining role because we're kind

with a crown of tinfoil;

never getting old

left to our own devices

as we should be

in a nation called "free"

what is free.

the air. the Soul.

comets,

the puddles we slosh through

on our way to being productive somewhere

for someone who may cut us loose

with no excuses made?

not there. in summer shade

near the raspberry bushes

anywhere farther than

the charmed mind can go

the clear mind calculated less than;

the mind that holds no grudge

sweet brook running under it all yet

fastened to the wind, the sky

the mind in its once upons

forever asking why

won't this come true

kitelike in its gemmy wonders blown

and out of favor.

we are the tribe of imagination's darlings

the least to be acknowledged in the GNP.

but we don't need to be.

mary angela douglas 4 july 2019