In The Green And Gold Of The Afternoons

sifting sunlight through the trees, God Is, mysteriously

the green and gold of the afternoons

where children echoing in their play

become the ghosts of yesterday

in the fairy forests the ones that they have cleared away now

for the subdivisions; and later, the luxury condos

but I remember long division, coming up to the blackboard

solving this and that and how at recess looking back

our school playground still was somewhat in the woods

where we could pick up arrowheads and pretend

at times we were holding down the forts or that we

could while roaming in that way become for a moment

horses faster than the wind or branch off in a solitude

sipping the honey from the honeysuckle vines

as if  we were hummingbirds skimming restive in our dreams

and might dart out, singing the way children do fragmentedly

from the dusty

earth our hearts charged with a different singing then

ruby throated, emerald throated too eluding everything;

washed forever by the evening dews.hearkening to

the blue violet call of the twilight.

mary angela douglas 12 march 2021