THEN SHOULD WE BEHOLD

so beautiful is the Tree of night...

  Pauline Hanson

then should we behold

through a fairy story peephole

the kaleidoscopic worlds

we were asked to leave behind

like unchecked luggage there, on the sidewalk.

would I be indicted 

as I was then for only mentioning them

I ask myself in the ghosting winds

and in these waning years.

who cares

they dont know everything anyway

some child's refrain who had my name

echoes down the years.

live free.whisper the mystified galaxies

not where the thieves snatched for themselves

the glass smile of the Princess, remember?

live where the meadow roses grow so multifoliate

on their own

uncultivated

on planets with several suns

and all of them meshing sunset impearled

myriads of them like clockwork jewels

going down in the West

we thought we knew or merely dreamed we did

when we were the guests

and the crooning moon

you could never reach

on any exterior expedition

says in soft serve vanilla or burnished peach to you only

reach now, pick the gilded apple

unbidden from the Tree of Night

and Beauty blighted, new leaved

the tearstained reprieve

of the immutable Easter.

mary angela douglas 10 november 2022;11 february 2023