The Book Tree Forest Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

well, this is to Ray Bradbury again, and I just can't do anything about that


imagine a forest of book-trees.
you just go through the woods humming whatever it is
you were humming and you pick them like wild apples
and no one says anything.

and the book trees are happy and don't
grab you around the knees like those horrible trees in
The Wizard of Oz; in fact, they lop off the books on
their top branches so you can read them, too, especially

if, like me, you are shorter than the others and used to
never get to the Easter eggs on the Easter egg hunt
because you day-dreamed instead of shoving.

well, as I was saying. you are in the book forest and
it's a perfect day. and picnics are automatically spreading themselves under the book trees, especially ice cream and that pink cake you always admired in the old Mickey Mouse cartoons; you thought it might even
taste pure 'pink'.

you sit down and eat your cake and the wind shakes the tree above you and down drops the latest installment of ray bradbury's new book he's been working on since June of 2012 when he passed away and it's fantastic, so you keep reading

and Ray shows up with his wife Margie and they're both so beatific you can't believe it but you do because it's happening to you and they invite you
into their cherry coloured sleigh for a trip to Mars

(just for the evening) and you realize, all of a sudden you're right in the middle of the happiest
alien abduction story of all time!

mary angela douglas 24 june 2014

P.S. where he lives now, Ray has a whole extra block of houses for his story file ideas. And a new typewriter with flashing Christmas Tree lights that looks like a cathedral organ. Really! (And when it gets to the margin, the typewriter bell goes off like a combo bicycle-ice cream truck bell and that detail proves I was really there.)

And Ray said, not to forget to tell you: Mars tastes exactly like deep-dish cherry pie with a thin buttery crust. Just a minute, I brought some back for you, if I can just remember what I did with it. Uh oh. Crumbs...