The Magician At The Close of Day (Revised)

somewhere I have never traveled gladly beyond any experience

e.e. cummings, "Somewhere I Have Never Travelled"


should I walk on perennial stilts to join the circus

keep creaming the new moons into quarters that shine

draw scarves out of the cotton candied air while being the penny

Valentine at the Fair

in my dream that opens its paper cut gate so that the bluebirds

shine hoisting the pink ribbon over the sugared landascape ... or 

it shuts in time like Cinderela's chime,like

cummings'poem so elegantly

on the somewhere the rose has never been seen

that delicately, that imperiled as though it were made

of snows.


evanescence is a tough act to follow.

when it is we ourselves slipping in and out of clouds

not only the copper moon

will I sleep till noon. will I understand again the language of

birds

if I am careful never to say a bruising word or will my heart

suddenly burst into paper flowers or fly into the furnace

all tin soldier and ballerina

flung by unrepentant winds into the forevers 


how can I write the arc of the story when it's me

and I know the egg timer's set and there's isn't time to pay

respects to everything to everything that vanished

one feels when the branches are lacework against the sky

the crossstitch of the violets and of the Spring moon

late May has been suspended;

embroidered embroidered on an empty loom.

mary angela douglas 2 may 2020;revised 6 june 2020