WHITE JADE/THE JEWELED MERIDIANS CHOOSE

WHITE JADE/THE JEWELED MERIDIANS CHOOSE

[translated from assorted baby languages…]

to P.L. Travers for her chapter “John and Barbera”

in "Mary Poppins"… (I did not forget)

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he said I have a pearl-handled stillness

to sell you, clocks with vanilla moons and

suns inlaid.

curious bubble-gum,emerald

or amethyst rings in just your size;

broken glass from the gumball machine.

a Cracker Jack prize.

a few chess pieces under a valentine sky;

on brown paper, your earliest shadow traced;

an eggbeater churning the colours in the clouds.

and if this breaks so many many more

keepsakes

the maps where silvered ships slipped through

and no one drowned.

striped candy.

a rhymed song merrily sung. and cherrily,

peachly. plum

the wind through wild grasses; gift-wrapped,

the jeweled meridians…choose.

I said I’m in a painting by Currier and Ives;

the sky’s forever lemon, streaked with violet jam

when what I really want oh what I am

is the Impressionists-

and to live in a thatched house

arranging lilies in a pale blue vase

that doesn’t tip over.

already the hour glass is falling apart-

so that I’m the one and only 

holding onto blind grace and

sifting these pink sands;

hauling the jar of peach bright pennies home

and shaking the glass globe twice on Sundays

so that snowfall swirls

somewhere, still in the world.

and this is for the last ones in the Park

who forgot to wave as I

rounded the corner-

too sequined-charming or bundled up

to know that some choice diamonds,

leaves and flowers go

never snagging at all

the glint of lilac

in the snow child’s snood…


where are they? would you tell me, if you could

that they are wreathed forever in an enchanted wood.

there God is. He won’t topple over.

soon you may want nothing but melting, too.

moire end papers rose-threaded through-

for the white jade stories

you have not lived yet


(whispered my Mother filtering

sunlight through the trees…)


mary angela douglas 15, 19, 21, 24 june 2012;27 june 2019;6 august 2023;17 may 2024

NOTE: One key to the riddle of this poem is that the "he" in the poem is Time itself.