At The Academy Of Golden Birds Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

Mary Angela Douglas

Mary Angela Douglas

Little Rock, Arkansas United States of America

At The Academy Of Golden Birds



at first I heard them singing
in my dreams: the golden birds.

when you're older Grandmother said
you'll know what it means;
you'll go to school
to learn about the golden birds.

I went.
with my plaid satchel.

the walls were bare.
chalk letters over and over
on the black board almost fluttered
but the stories were always about
something else.

day after day I waited sorting apples from oranges
cutting out paper leaves
till waiting wasn't a thing I could do
not even with waxed paper,
pressing the flowers.

when will we learn
about the golden birds I asked?
coming in one day from recess

from dust-clouded running like the
gold horse of the plains I reigned so slightly in.

the teacher grew red faced
though she hadn't been running.

not explaining anything
that's what we're doing.

sit - down.

I never saw them there, my golden birds;
not even kept in cages by the pencil sharpener
or beside the aqua water fountains
where I would have gone to feed them gladly, pineapple cake.
at least on Wednesdays.

oh they should have arisen like their four and twenty
brethren from the King's own pie…

but they couldn't live at school.
in combination lockers.

maybe I should have stayed at home
where they came so easily
before I even learned to spell them
flock after flock to my Grandmother's rose bush

without even being asked, nicely…

mary angela douglas 29 may 2012

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Mary Angela Douglas

Mary Angela Douglas

Little Rock, Arkansas United States of America
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