To Jean Redpath Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

and to my mother, Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas

'Fled is that music-: Do I wake or sleep? '
John Keats, Ode To A Nightingale

fled is the dream past dream on the clock of waking;
tulip-cupped the moon where the starry snows are flaking.
when will I awake in the rooms of before, not after.

silver, laughed the trees but they are gone
where the sun creaks like old swings on the playgrounds.
after song is evening, afterthought is all,

in pearl bright slippers.
and the sunsets crowd: mere thread
through the needle of the last hour

shadowing the pear trees in the fairy story.
count, king by king and it's away
sigh the milk bright; wept the sailors

lost to executions now;
unread, wrote the poets in the frost of
windowpanes...

I'm going door to door selling all the flowers
out of my mind and orphaned from the business world
and late for lunches wrapped in wax paper;

the jam smudged bread.

nebulae, almost cried the child in the crib
with the orange coverlet;
dream, sighed the clouds and took her home; is it too late

for conversations? they have scattered the cranberry hills
my heart-where it's all flood tide for the
brides with lilies in their hands:

on the cusp of lavender and in the purpling dark

you used to know.
and here they leave you and you don't know why
where the gold and the silver leaves

have fluttered fluttered down
leaving the fairytale branches
that scar the skies:

skirling, the wanderer wandered
and far from the rose red lanes.
the voice of mists may falter:

the Song, remains.

mary angela douglas 1 september 2014; last lines in italics added september 2,2014