the rose-red sealing wax on the letter's dry now;
the rose-red rose-white story comes to rest
like the see-saw on the frozen playground
like the rusted swings still floating in no wind at all.
frost-emulsed are the Christmas windows
and the glorious Holly and the Star we looked through to see:
the golden bears delivered from their worst selves
on such a cinnamon-sequined day as this.
but I can't tell you the end of the story
or why my cloud-shaped jigsaw piece won't fit
(not even on Christmas morning)
in the thin sky above the little house
swept penny-bright and latched.
I went a long cold way in my scuffed shoes
to fling a milk quartz crackly word into
the moss green pools of
something not remembered, but that shone.
don't tell your wishes ever or:
they'll not come true
was whispered in my every dream
but I'll tell you the Christmas angels cried:
"FEAR NOT"-
though years of speaking only underwater
made it hard to see
their real words on the page.
I wished that God would turn
the snow-bright word my Mother packed
(along with her sandwiches of butter and sugar)
into a language all of the angels hear.
mary angela douglas 5 october 2009;25 april 2023
*references to the Brothers' Grimm fairy story: Rose Red, Rose White
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