Brocade Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

'the poetry of earth is never dead.'
-John Keats

(for my mother Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas)

you were the jewel set in the roseate ballet perhaps
the princess at christening under the pink veils
the tiara flash glimpsed from the balconies:

what snow could dream if
snow dreamed now that everything's
en pointe and vanishing: (to be

pineapple sherbet scooped from the moon
by the surprised children at the
lemon layered birthdays)

have april snows answered a pale green summons?
why where is the gleam of earth disappearing to
said the teachers plainly mocking our surmise far

from the blush rose words they have sifted out of everywhere before distracted minds could sense
that captive beauty in the closet with the mops,

the confiscated lollipops, smuggled fruit chews-
was being punished through the classroom day
and only for shining.

is light reduced then is time is dreaming gone
with the apple pie fractions filed away
fled is song the way it was known

flown without icarus bright without
the suns ah, canceled flights:
o rose coronas crated, shipped

out of here by the laconic half-hired herds-
they see us as, but we do not
though it feels, almost, overnight

the banded rainbows break apart
for words in the weeping spectrum:
say goodbye to your sisters,

indigo, cream yellow, shimmering
cherry and lime while violet sighs while orange
commiserates with tangerine

ah not for long in party dress
it seems, and never again?
it's back to work

where the hourglass tips on its side
bleeding soft ochre sands of the sunsets
on our shifts the ones we've missed

when the flowers girls in mauve
scattered the last of the petaled weddings,
are we madrigal-silenced by the coteries?

or is this where the princess kneels
slipping the golden ring down
the orchid ripples of the ancient spring

no one knows the way to anymore.
o lore lock stocked and barreled away
His tropical isotopes

His sequined kaleidoscopes
by the inescapably in command
how long will lost worlds waken to poetry where

men who were scarcely poets marked 'discard'
on every apricot delectable word He spoke us into:
coining His opal skies, His illimitable

freedom the sweet great magic trick of a World?
ah but who will diagnose, and hurl
forever from our sight to any prison dark consign

His watershed crystals done by nightfall
coded in currant inks and torn with the soul from
the spiraling notebooks

vast collations of His heart abandoned
just-in-time my radiance,
buried in deep space through filmy sleep we fine no

blueprints of the apple orchard years
and dare to breathe:
is this His lilac wishing frozen in reserve?

spare parts of birdsong, the pastel chalked repose,
love tunes ruby caged, old mechanical
valentines with clasped posies in

no disappearing whir, beyond disapprobation:
the extra geranium crayon in the Art box
stashed with all our raspberry velocipedes,

missing maple leaves and drenching pearls from
the waterfalling screens, the iridescence once
we lived in, didn't we? embroidered greens and golds

flowed from our shoulders, hints of a robined sky, as yet
unrolled new seed beds of His exceeding floweriness
for just such emergencies as these!

all the Easter dyes! cupboards of coconut from the
candied citadels of infinite Stories-
my child, my own and queen of the cordial cherries

all milk weed spoked and spoken now:
keep, oh keep! their delicate parachutes into Summer.
coated in grey ash, we have retrieved

our sparkling King.
though we were whittled down.
all winter long

the little cakes managed with the
last of the raisins-
better than all frosted

sugar eggs holding the pale pink rose garden
(one tiny rose)
of the world's wordiest princess.

under a brand new moon-
lick the Spoon!

mary angela douglas 27 september 2014