Reliving It All

that summer I relived the Caucus Race

the once in the Alice books events and we were given comfits

wrapped in coloured foil but the exchange rate was terrible

we were all young meandering

and an organizing voice from nowhere said now we're all going to run together

and run and run like an invisible conductor of a squawking music

but where I thought so loudly my words almost came out in the open

into little pink balloons and lingered above my head

and got trampled I laughed and said this is not a good idea for short people

no one will see me  (they never do) and I will get stepped on in the grass

who was there to ask suddenly there was in this dream a wonderous transformation

more wished for deeply down than expressed but who cares how it happened;

with little sandwiches of jam and butter suddenly

it happened I ran slightly toward the back of the dream and found myself

in a delicious bookstore, better than caramels in foil quickly finding the section

with the children's books of yesteryear with their charming illustrations

I ran in place while leafing through them and was so happy that i had got out of the stupid race without even

having planned a thing and then I saw children happy as the day who had figured it all out too

who left the trackless track and wandered back and back into the riches

of the heart and mind, into lost time thanks be to God for infinite kindness

for relieving us of blindness

and recovered it irrevocably and all that gipsy music too

and Alice in a frock more rose than blue, a fresh pinafore 

facing a small glass door...

mary angela douglas 16 march 2021

The Problem As Alice Saw It Later

in her least favorite dream

it wasnt the things she had said that

bothered her

it was always the things she was asked

she knew she could solve things above ground

after all, she always did well in school,

regardless of the task

but here in the one blue dress the only one she seemed to have 

brought with her

all questions had no answers

or else, they had the wrong ones

and the Doormouse KNEW it.

so she outgrew the houses, one by one

till all tea parties were done

then only the trial remained

for which there was no clue

no matter how hard she studied

her head was filled with rue.

nothing nothing filled the teacups.

the only solution

was to wake up

mary angela douglas 27 february 2021

Alice In A Dream Of What Was Melting, Even Then

in dreams we are never sure of the place:

it could be this or another one.

geography dissolves.

and then reappears.

there is a melting of rooms.

then, do they bloom again?

she asked herself on a sunny afternoon

on the very same river but

under a farther sun.

and the clouds float on
the surface of the bowl
and not in the puddles

and the mind is muddled
and do we drift in dreams, do we?
birthday candles in a pinafore pocket...
(just in case you know, they bring a cake-
and with glazed cherries...)

and though it glints like diamonds
the sun on the river; the heart asleep, awake?

you're still out of view in a thin sleeved dress:

though present at the pink occasion
when they tick you off the roll

and late again, for the bus ride home

mary angela douglas 2 february 2015;3 february 2015

Alice In Tears Before The Brilliant Garden, The Smallish Door

"[I am the Door..."

Jesus, John 10:9-16, The Holy Bible]

coming to that spot on the ice blue maps,

haven't they all wondered: (those explorers)

what will we find? o what did you have in mind

no ghost of Geographies ever asked them
 kindly, near the shores;

but we slipped through a golden door.

the heart counts up the fatal separations
as if they were Spanish gold.
these summers pass...

but they remained cheerful on fatal expeditions

and not yet cued to ask as if with that Choric voice
replacing your own if you're not circumspect:

what is it WE are leaving?  for who could ever

that lost book bind.

and all is fallen or about to fall felt the child

trembling before alphabet towers trembled and caved reminding himself, wholly without words: be- careful.

coming to the end of this never-quite-beginning

what will I find

and will the grown-ups believe when it's only I 

am holding the vanished faces

without  breaking them at all
Humpty Dumptied off the Wall...?

a task for variety show adepts before the shimmering

curtain closes;and ebbs and ebbs the ragged applause

so said the Queen in rose red words

painted over...
reading my thoughts as if they were her own.
(but they were not)

before- she- struck- me.
or was it you- or you
Mock Turtle sighed into the Soup
of which he was the finest ingredient:
lugubriously, oh who struck who.

it's whom it's whom someone accused.
when Riddles Began little party favors
no one would want.

oh what have you kept? what has

been left to your keeping? whatever you must weep for

when the disasters have finished with you

I called through the snow tunnels - can I answer that? 

but who was there left to Grade me? yet I'm,

gathering up the fragments of pink and blue...
the shiny pencils handing it all in and my

scattered lore, my starlit stance. 

and what do you adore the White Knight asked

while his lance melted and the green grass roared goodbye
 goodbye forever to Nebuchadnezzar

was wept in a light blue dress, leaving us
to implore

oh let it be God o may I slip through the golden Door

mary angela douglas 2, 3 november 2014;11 november 2014

In The Theatre Of Roses I Took My Seat

in the theatre of roses I took my seat.

of course the cushions were rose velvet.

now we begin.

each petal whispers from the floodlights of

a moon overhead, in wisps of tissue pink

resembling clouds, resembling dreams that

barely speak aloud, the hidden streams.

I hid you in my pockets thinking to keep you

alive and when you curled at the edges

I cried. we remember sighed the roses.

we remember you near the rosebushes

in a corner of the yard and how you

tried. and now we're here so you can see

that wishes are never wasted on anyone.

and their rose laughter was so sweet

in waves and waves it rose.

I curtsyed like Alice learning my lessons curiously.

then, outside in the blinding afternoon

on the uneven sidewalks of the world,

I stood awhile- remembering life

as a little girl-

outside the matinee of roses.

I have finished now.

this was their song.

mary angela douglas 20 august 2014

Who's Running These Carnival Shows

[to Robert Frost

and to my Grandfather-]

who's running these carnival shows a

someone wanted to know

who walked through a door marked Poetry

in golden typescript, transom pretty. freshly painted, too.

Oh will it make me smaller? queried Alice

her eyes brand new.

No. only everything you were before you came here.

and what was there before? said another.

some old hardware store that sold odd

carriages, nuts and bolts for the universe

and the farm communities.

Do your duty! said the country.

write it all.

we did on paper airplanes floating through school

halls or in the snow, in angel format

Christmas wild. o child.

don't go there.  anyone can take a name
and put a shingle out though

behind the door are polka dots and clowns.

sad scavengers.

Poetry's in the grasslands running free

where no one needs to know if it's famous;

only God.

who singing's for, and liberty-

when it comes to it.

mary angela douglas 30 july 2014;29 january 2015

The Blessing Over The Apricot Nectar

the ice cubes clink in the apricot juice

like gilded bells and the froth of sunset

in small iridescent beads

washes over us; after all

you meant to say

like Alice on her summer day

then let it be the tart lemon mixed with

the cherry pie sweetness 

toffee laden 

you were born for! or else it's

pomegranate, the ruby starriness

transposed to our local setting.

may it be made of jade.

the young leaves shade.

the life-span of gold.

may its ears be stuffed with amethyst snows:

your fairy tale instant! lidded with stars

in the hard winter

with not a scrap of bad news

at the indoors tea parties.

mary angela douglas 4 may 2014;rev. 17 november 2014

Pale Blue Lament For The Caucus Race In Early Summer

[to Lewis Carroll]

handing the comfits round

poor Alice cried again

away from the sun drenched page.

the last that I had left, she thought,

and never cake for tea.

tomorrow they'll want my blue hair ribbons too

snipped up in equal parts, the yellow, the bright green

for another race round the circle.

(what next, my heart.)

there can't be laurel leaves enough for them.

inside or outside of a dream

and  I can't find the perimeter of shining.

why can't we live

glad to be in the sun a little while

eating wild strawberries by the riverbank?

leaving the race to someone else

for whom clear moonlight is never enough,

the pink-white orchard shine

or unauditioned, all

exuberant birdsong I have ever heard,

and little Christmas bells...

mary angela douglas 1 may 2014 rev.16 september 2017

I Saw The White Knight Shining In A Farther Dream

to Lewis Carroll

I saw the white knight shining in a farther dream

said Alice, over the turnstile and he was not

as broken as before mused Alice.

I have no defense, he said.

and bowed his head where the silver birds

had nested forgetting how to sing oh so

at home.

have you wandered too? he asked me.

how could I say when I saw the castles in the distance

not that far away

mary angela douglas 8 february 2014

They Would Not Send The Angels To Help Us

they would not send the angels to help us

through a sea of tears and the door is locked 

on alice into the garden floats the little key

lost, lost without her

they would not send the angels to help us

or stay the executions even one more day.

one more day on your bright earth the

one you intended the one you gift-wrapped for us with

starlight brighter than tinsel tenderly

with your little leaves just coming out on

the vines of our houses 

they burned it all down who would not send the

angels to help us

tho chained the angels each to each

and mocked their brilliance.

but you put the rainbow in their wings

in their wings that flew over the seas of ink

the poets died for

dying to say we loved your light Jehovah

they would not send the angels to help us

so You came yourself

mary angela douglas 14 january 2014

Alice In A Blue Gown Wondering

shall I follow the burbling stream thought

Alice to herself in a dream within a dream

this was in the Pre-Rabbit days

or just let it burble on

oh really is there any other way to burble

than to yourself she wondered as if for

the first time in a lifetime of wondering

that was merely just starting to be self-evident

is there any other way apart from dreams to part-

but muddled are the colours when I find them

(if I find them) in the galleries of sleep

and am I invited I am not to the first showings

shall I follow the burbling stream each time it

burbles or only on Mondays only in a green glade

God forgot to color in or left for me invitingly to find

so I’ll just fill in the outlined spaces

for Him, Shall I?

with a soft periwinkle.

mary angela douglas 5 august 2013;30 november 2020

OOPS! I FELL DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

OOPS! I FELL DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

oops! I fell down the rabbit hole

in my poem

Hello Alice, lovely dress the

perfect shade of blue I

was sent to warn you

I wish I could have

warned myself

now we're plummeting

past the Rabbit's

bookshelves

stop! I want to

read the titles so

I can find them

when I wake up...

there's going to be

a tea party - you'll

be sitting at the

table in your party dress

but you won't feel invited

despite the pink cake

in the middle of the table;

you won't get a slice

no matter how nicely you pour tea;

you ask too many questions

and you won't have a moment

to yourself. even if you cry,

other people will utilize

your tears on the spot this is

that kind of dream: you

can't wake up when you want to,

dear.

but the door to the garden,

once you get through-

just stay: on the still point of

a turning world that makes no sense;

like a jewel-box ballerina when

the music ends

remaining you by barely breathing

so that at the last

you'll be

unperceived and bounce yourself out of

their false rose frieze

mary angela douglas february 2008