When You Have Forgotten

someday breaking into the last supernova
some imagine their fate that way
spieled across the skies

an unmitigated display

my spelling is more backward
in pale green in Renaissance sighs
scrawled in the snow by the twiglike

birds imprint, of a fairytale disguise
not breaking into print, more glasslike,
bubbled on the wind

the beginning just
of a flowered Capital
shyly  devised my friend;

on a rickety staircase

trailing the dust of roses, primroses?
why do they laugh at ancient poets 
even as a child it made me sad

then there's the ghost that comes out
shaking the holly berries and you clatter with cold
and you say, this isn't old;are you mad?

it's dripping with gold, the honey stored for you 
oh petulant man in a thousand thousand springs
when you have forgotten

all you can of the slow days of Grace.
or never read it rightly in the first place.

mary angela douglas 23 december 2019