Sing As You Did, The Secret Names Of Ferns Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

once as a child did you speak into unknowing
the seashell of the darkness
coded with pink light in such small stars

and hear the star music,
as if it were as familiar a thing
as teacups

just before waking up

what could you know about the history of light
but you felt it.

find in grown over shrubbery in dreams
the cottage of a distant scene, the playhouse remembered
and the blackberry vines

and strangely, feel at home there
and think nothing of it of Time
not even the fisher price playroom wall clock
with its see through to red, blue and green
plastic cogs

did you see through what seemed opaque


to anyone else as if glimpsing
flowers before their blooming
the beauty accomplished
birds just before their launches into song
the treble notes trembling in the dew on the leaves

the robins egg blue skies when it was thundering

surely Grandmother must have seen
prescient as she was, like Maeterlinck
the light streaming mysteriously
as you did, mellow through the living room's

fleur di lis globe

or notice the cloud the one cloud
suddenly tipped with vermillion tipping over
or sing as you did

the secret names of ferns
when only the wind was listening
and perhaps one small chirping bird

on the pavement of dreams

everafter all sparrows would seem to you
golden
though you lost or never found the reasons why

towards Easter the light settling over the irises
underneath the piano studio window
seemed gilded beyond the ordinary

affected by my sister's hours of beauteous practice

producing small tears in the corners of your eyes
in the pale green coldness
of early Spring afternoons when heard from outside

soon, too soon now the fairytale endings

o stop, Time, just for a minute!

but even then, weren't we always



drifting away with the moon

our house and everything, everyone in it.

mary angela douglas 27 september 2022; 21 february 2023