My Most Roseate Years Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

MY MOST ROSEATE YEARS
(to my mother, in lieu of roses, now)
that poems should filter beauty as summer trees the light
was often in childhood my cherished hidden delight
to sing like this! my wish of all wishes.
a poet said full long ago I know the woods of Arcady are dead
and yet to me it seems not so whenever I turn like Keats to the realms of gold
and spy again as through a pinhole the quartz bright kingdoms of my own bequeathed to me
all that was hoped for in my most roseate years'
shining and shining in the imperiled rose gardens sans fear and ignorant of the days to come.

mary angela douglas 12 may 2021