The Lilacs In The Evening Of My Poem (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

let the moon be bright and clear in my poem about the
lilacs though I know so many have written, have sung about
them before
still, they have not written my lilacs into their poems
how could they?
so I feel justified in making this small garden shine
and letting it be evening in the poem and it has rained
and of course the perfume of the lilacs is stronger now,
sublime, seamless with the dusk
thus, the wind knows it and the wind comes through my
poem's screen door and laughs and scatters all the papers
on the floor
and opens all the books to the former poems about lilacs
written across the ages
and we are like, that suddenly, this evening breeze and I
a shop with jeweled clocks and timepieces
all set to the same mystical railroad hour,
rose gold and engraved:
the self same floweriness ticking away and suddenly hushed
no longer young or old
just caught out in a lilac moment
and this poem I present to you
is a bouquet of them, at evening, tied with ribbons of
silver in the paperdoll moonlight
and the purple crayon clouds of the scent of the blossoms
has made you happy
thinking about this:
in Heaven the lilacs are immutable;
we will be too

mary angela douglas 16 june 2021; 2 november 2021; 5 november 2021; 11 april 2023