LET MIRRORS AND CLOCKS BE MELTING

for my sister on her 71st birthday, August 19, 2023

for Sharon Foster Douglas, the most beautiful pianist I ever

heard in my life...

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let mirrors and clocks be melting

as in a film by Jean Cocteau

and chandeliers gleam by way of reflection

indirectly shine and yours and mine

the fireworks over the castle

I am not finished yet with the glass records

with Debussy's preludes

or is it Ravel's

the petal closing spell cast over the roses

with hearing them in my Grandmother's studio

where the piano is always reechoing somehow

especially at sunset

at sunset when I am listening

to the glasslike preludes

and I know I am melting into this music

and they will come to look for me

like characters out of Maeterlinck

the dear departed

who wake up when they are remembered

and say Grandchild, Grandchildren

for it is my sister and I

on the violet bluebird trail again

I know, moving again, shadows from the magic lanterns

of that long ago scene

more real than anything

more than these current

rabbiting shadows

shifting on the pale lemon walls.

mary angela douglas 18 august 2023