The Clouds Fall Down They Call It Snow

did she spill rose light on the floor she thought perhaps
or pull the curtains and then it was night and if you
pull them again will it be day

the clouds fall down
they call it snow
music comes out of my Grandmother's grand piano

whenever she sails the ivory keys she dispenses
the chocolate squares wrapped in silver foil
the dog wants in when it rains and joins in

all our games did
we spill happiness on the rugs, on the pale sofa with
the bright pillows?

i drew the curtains back and it was summer
glorious summer said Hans Andersen
giving the flowers their names

and I thought, cornflower blue
are the mermaid's eyes she must be crying
how are rainbows made through prisms

what are willows? what is on tv
Walt Disney lives in his own kingdom.
so do we

mary angela douglas 8 february 2015

When The Swans Turned Home

it isn't fair could she have said

to the chill in the corners:

these impossible fairytale deadlines...

here is the room of straw.

the task of gold.

and not much time at all

for learning now what you should have learned,

then. so tears begin and the question of the hour:

will winter ever set?

and then a bargain's made

with trolls in a bad temper.

is there any other way?

and coach worthy pumpkins are sorted from the patch;

rag bags fetched into gowns.

or in a room of forest green

mute as an ancient spell

the princess weaves seven shirts

and one with an unfinished sleeve

that will forever be a wing

when the swans turn home.

mary angela douglas 13 january 2015

A SILVER BRANCH IS BROKEN FROM

A SILVER BRANCH IS BROKEN FROM

[to the Russian Poets: past, present and future with deep hope and gratitude-and, most emphatically, to the poets of the Silver Age]

a silver branch is broken from

a golden tree.

in the upper atmosphere

are many angels

and clouds of shimmering

radiant symbols.

if it were colder it would be

snowing angels

and Christmas could come early.

but you lose your way in

the fairytale forest

forgetting to be

on your guard-

plucking a rose in the

fatal hour-

turning to stone.

all blazing kingdoms

corroborate:

the same victory on the same day.

and there is world-wide entertainment

and sherbet in 10,000 flavors.

but the milk-white sky pours out

pitchers of sorrow;

the sun on its own bakes

bitter loaves.

and like children unjustly punished

we can't stop weeping for

the silver branch

cut from the golden tree-

mary angela douglas 13 june 2005/30 august 2005/copyright 2006

Around The Fairytale's Gemstoned Page

[to my Grandmother, Lucy W. Young, my Grandfather Milton B. Young and to Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, among others...thank you! and thanks are due to God since as a friend once said, "God gives us the fairytales to show us the way home... "(P.S. To my mother too, of course. Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas, who spoke in syllables of strawberry and utter cream all the time. really.), my charming sister too, daughter of music, Sharon)

around the fairytale's gem-stoned page are sun splattered leaves and berries softening the borders ferny angels lightly penciled in beyond the trees that shift like pedaled dreams 

on the dream piano of the pale blue country lined with gold I pray to someday rescue if I can- pure swans down drifts down these elaborate Capitals on every sunset's page the 

swans revert to children and are saved on the one rock left in the water coloured whirlpools of their sea- and I skip backwards to a small green house with spearmint strip-ed 

awnings or a pink- beige brick with picture windows and mimosa trees... you can't fade away along the borders flushed with glaced roses I won't let you- and every time 

i close my eyes the skies are pleated with your swans the ruby candlestick in Beauty's room drips very lime-green wax all over my small table with the circus scenes. maybe 

for childhood's jam-spooned days, alone, they gathered all those startling coronations, words of best green velvet, I don't know how else the carriage came to be cut from the 

creamy rind of citrus afternoons as if with the golden scissors of a King Hans Christian Andersen it's still me wavering in a pink embroidered dress and golden slippers, 

wobbling near the icy angels with their candle spun whispering as they say: rework the hidden brocades now of all lost feelings, places, courtiers, things- in snowy silence 

heaped with silver lilies...shine... I can't break faith with the fairytale task till vaster kingdoms come and my sister's perfect Chopin bubble clears the pink-white-red azaleaed 

fence while the clouds keep billowing out beneath their clothespins the milk makes butter islands in the oatmeal until- the last sweet early peas are sorted satisfactorily 

from the Milky Way and kept in the stoppered bottle on our etagere, the one the colour of ashes of roses... but will they turn to diamonds in the end or chicken pie you may well 

wonder when the curtains close... Grandmother's playing Liebestraum again in her rose taffeta on a rose taffeta staff she turned to diamond music in the end taking my 

Grandfather's arm and heading upward without her pearl opera glasses but with the Psalms all double scored in moonlight... the day winds down like antique toys in soft 

yellow chenille- the jeweled heart sifts in the furnace the tin soldier cannot reach the tabletop... someday I will learn to live expecting better swans and in your name I'll find the 

lemon latitudes so fine of the summers everywhere now- of the hidden mermaids with a sainted love dissolving into foam... 

mary angela douglas 5 april 2011