Dorothy Toward Oz, The House Never Settling

(random thoughts while filing O through Z)

(for L. Frank Baum)

sometimes the heaviness of earth ...

seems as though it should plunge from space free falling forever

with its houses and lamp posts, leftover candies

amazed pets, cherry toffee medicinal brandies;

the mind grows faint. how will the sun set on the emporiums?

where will it land, the earth, in the blue dusk,

the canyon of the

blue dusk at last, with the winds sifting the gold ash of leaves

or where the weddings veil it

or will it plummet tumbling these: lost brides, stray tides

like a load of wash through an

unrelieved depth spinning, spilling all the coffees and contents,

the fairy tale porridge, the orange crayons...

with extra tornados, the last of the summer tomatoes,

the mayo. too; all that moonlight...the pocket caramels

Dorothy toward Oz...the house never settling.

the earth is heavy with cries.

with devastations.

with lies. and small thimbles

with the accumulation of tears and invoices

from the apothecaries

with funnel cakes and fries,

and railroad ties

recriminations. attic crinolines

and carillions';picnic baskets packed-

with little pats of butter, soft white rolls.

lime green shutters, think of that

the climbing roses from the house in the country

all the sundries

with random coronations

with gold leafed, French

medieval illuminations.

the tree ringed years on years.

all the disappearing. listen here:

dust after dust to tumbleweed reeling

keeling over the ice cream floats, the piano notes

the forded moats, the small fans whirring

oh kaleidoscope blurring, the earth all its things

caught up by angels wings or plummeting in flurries

the earth is so heavy with shopping trips

who could ever lift it again, poor ruby Sandcastle

I mourned for thee sloshing in your pearl seas

oh that it were a cloud and could drift away,this earth,

dispensing itself in the rose colors, photo finish

or from the snack machines, and vanish

or in the needed rains like an O. Henry ending

watch chain without the watch, how will I wind thee...

but it remains with its mystical diaries

its o I cannot find Thee;

lost on the wind, the wind, the wind scattering the Pleiades until

I plead for thee

the plateaus, the Plains sad wilderness untamed

the ruined fields of grain

heavier than all things. flowering flowering sod;

the sweet door hinge to God.

mary angela douglas 11 november;12 november 2021;16 february 2022