ALL STORMS LEADING TO OZ (FINAL VERSION)

 

remember when school readers used to hold

a suffusion of fairy tales and rocket ships

in one jeweled balance

of the pearl swung day, the day swung up into the clouds

and the day brought golden delicious apples to our doorstep

our doorstep of wine and cream coloured clover;

the fields of stars to the blue cast twilight

our sudden too early yet nostalgias,

Christmas onsets, the Easter lilies tolling

turning the page and we learned to speak in preserving amber,

just about everything, and ate honey encrusted toast

and the honeycomb thick in the early mornings

honeycomb thick and fast upon the bread of the past

I can recall, the slate shadows of afternoons 

and tv covered wagons crossing a stream that become a flood

the native tunes the bird tracks in the woods,

the parting of ferns

oh everything we learned

that poem about the mud and the yellow rose

and another one all cat shivery

with the red and gold of leaves

and the pumpkin frights, the child in the quilted bed

up late at night

and comforted by shadow puppets on mysterious walls

but not the rabbits

by the cradle hymns sung lowly

and the wind that is fluted where nobody knows

that called to you in your sleep singing to you alone

of strawberries and the well sewn seam

and little paper cups of ice cream with a wooden spoon

when vanilla tasted so moonbright-velvety

or porch light lamp glow when you were Queen,

attended by the pale frenzy of moths

or the milk glass vase with the garden rose entranced us

beyond all Cause, the tinkling, glass bright of Chopin

on Grandmother's studio piano as played by my sister Sharon

and the stories where children ruled and were kind and

even benevolent, and all Time, heaped up with cherries

with gooseberries in the canned fruit cocktail, heavy syrup

all Time was lent to us then

new minted for us to spend willy nilly

as though we had centuries to linger here over summer board games

and be silly in birthday party crowns bedazzling

and most of the time climbing the hills of green

if not, renown

beneath a mulberry sun our laughter full of flowers

won the day and the kite flown stars in vacant lot hours,

all of them, were ours, the heavenly chime of words,

the apple white maytimes, the angels smiling

almost hidden in the pictures.stop motion scene:

the birds of night never eating the silver breadcrumbs

the milkweed under that monarch butterfly sun,

the heart not torn,

at least, not permanently from its ruby hinge

in the Kingdom Come,de la mare's dog with the silver paws

and all storms leading, leading ua to Oz.

mary angela douglas 18 february 2022;18 march 2023