starting over again in the beautiful world you imagined
when you were small or smaller than now
with your eyes closed in front of the rose garden breathing it in
and making the sky blue crayon go far because of course
when colouring in, the Heavens were most important
you remember how much you loved your dolls and bears
and books with gay pictures and looking glass investitures
and the pure magnolias Grandmother set
in her sterling silver bowl, the one we were baptized from
at home,my sister and I
by our pastor, R.D. Adams
and I remember music pouring all afternoon from the sunroom
where my Grandmother taught children to play the classical pieces
we loved forever from daily repetition and glass records and Debussy
we could listen too endlessly on her stereo all the Great Composers
and that seemed natural to us so that we heard glissandos in our dreams
and tried to sew the fairytale seams or the cross stitch embroidery
she taught us and managed to sew on buttons , take up hems in the end
prepared for the modern world or what was called modern then
by reciting the psalms and the book of John
and that was home with the yellow light on the porch that red brick house, the mimosa trees in front
and if I could have I would have lived there the way it was then
forever.
mary angela douglas 23 january 2023
