In The Country Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

in the country, where one grows old

and the roses shadowing into their dusk

the moon held aloft, a pale green lantern


by whom are these things noted, gardenia soft;

the moon a wide ribbon woven through clouds

consumed for the Soul, that silver moth


it's the crescent of ending


I behold or you, as you were,

before the floods the candles'

drift on the snowy cakes


the present of it all

in star flecked tissue revealing


you,

on your small porch



looking out on your allotted ocean of time

and the foam of it aqua,


unto the stars, the swing's wide measure

on the playground dreamed

the dust rising from the shoe scuff of it


the blues and the greens in a whirl

on the carousel colored in; carillions counted,

blossoming pink to white;



the horses raving, frozen as they were


and turning into the Fair remembered

one was fire, singing the milkmaids

in adawn, the faun colored roses


the heart tuned to pearl

and the dew tinged hour


the freshness rose it was ever Easter

rising, sweets in the grass half hidden

the dime witched dial crumbling you thought



was diamond


the Disneyland beckoning,

reckoning,


the childhood tears behind

dried, in the sullen A pinwheel wind

the music box wounding of it, forgo;


the purple rising, the iced tea clinking

of the glass you were drinking the purple of

what is past and that gleams


the gleams of it far behind now

the Star ahead

the may blossom falter of it;


the ones that loved you


when you were new,

the honeysuckle bright of it,

blazing up


renewed, it's Christmas;

the angels draw nigh;

Hans Andersen, in a sleigh



parting invisible snows.



mary angela douglas 4 may 2019