I HAD NO BOOK OF HOURS THREADED WITH ROSES

 

I had no book of hours threaded with roses

in the margins, a pale green silk marker

of the affinities

but I had fairytales down to the Arkansas blue coral slate

of my soul and

chipping away of everything else

not mazed

and the King James Bible with a purple marker

where my Grandmother underscored all the Psalms

and iced tea with fresh mint from my Grandfather's garden

my mother's pristine Song

and a sister who could play Chopin as if she were his music

reincarnate so that the rain and the wind swept in

prismatically

I had this and music too spilling out into all the rooms of our house

in glass record tones and the luxuriant tones of my Grandmother's Liszt

when she played the piano in her rose red dress or taught her students well

I cannot tell you how it was imagine floating on moonlight

the lilacs scented above and the lilacs are starlight

star and flower in the same breath and metered time and beyond refinement

as those in Eternity must be by now

and everything in your childsoul is washed by the music

you're not supposed to understand as a child scoff the critics

who know nothing, nothing at all about the way

children can dream the scent of appleblossom in Spring

but I know because I remember

everything from then

and I promise you

there is nothing more beautiful to me

not in all Creation not in all the museums

the coteries of glass chess pieces and strategies, auditions

lined up in what they call the world.

mary angela douglas 25 july 2023