Maypole Dancing Dulcet As Spring Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

'Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie; '
-George Herbert, Vertue

maypole dancing dulcet as spring
streamers of pink, of green of lemon
like the sun, of violet, pale

cerise and candy spun and spinning
as if we are flowers flowers themselves
and first of the illustrations first of May

in a book of old stories inscribed carefully
in someone else's april handwriting
sloping, violet-fed. sighed the princess,
in every colour.

and she's in a dotted swiss, pale green
and a rose rose riband of velvet
because

it's green we are dancing holding onto
the sun (to a lemon drop one) and
taffy pulling the pink and the green
and the pale cerise, cerise.


compacted sweets she decided on
for a birthday in a silver box,
wide with a ribbon of lavendar sheen and I
want that dress in every colour, please;

oh sheerly
pleasingly holding onto the light the Princess
dreamed: imploring the Flower Queen

getting lost in the spectrum and laughing.
and this is where wishes were granted-
pastel, with softest slippers to match...

mary angela douglas 16 february 2014