my memory's screen door opens to the stars;
there's my Grandfather in the yard
gazing up at the constellations
'That's Telstas, going over us still,'
he whispers softly
his face in the moonlight lined;
no Hamlet's ghost is he
though he whistled when he was worried.
He's not worried now
tending the ghosts of the marigolds
and I am light years from then
though I wish it weren't so.
I wish I could go and turn in my silver flats
in my 12 year old party dress of blue taffeta
and sing him the alphabet or a thousand other things
made of mystery and the beautiful, the blue back speller
but I'm too old for that now or else
he's too young.
younger than I am now
but sitll in the pea green jacket with the fedora
trousers from the 1940s.
tall as any tree
still in love with the Space program
the baseball scores of the Arkansas Travelers.
and shining my shoes for school,
the penny loafers later on, in this nostalgic dream: to a
farethewell,
bright as copper stars.
mary angela douglas 21 october 2020
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