Vivid Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

in memory of my grandmother, Lucy White Young

these peripheral fairy stories
I still wind
on a reel of gold

even if the pictures are flickering
in this Celluloid mirror
and the glass slipper slips to the stones
and shatters
before it can be found.

I still preserve like
muscadine jam the
soul's gilt gingerbread

it's peppermint and gemstone gumdrop
crenellations;
all sugar plumed, pasteled expectations;
a panoramic view at Easter

of violet-trimmed hats
against a primrose sky;
the key to the heart's most
singular libretto, a
treble clef of stars:
music unfolding like this fugue of far dimensions

my mother singing in a green plaid dress.

butter and sugar on enchanted bread
the faraway Land of Green Ginger
tomato soup, grilled cheese

fruit cocktail.

ever-closer I gather my anamolies,
secured for the glittering denouement:

twelve fairies with their gifts,
a summer piano's
'Rustle of Spring',
a bird's chilled singing in the holy rain

the spinning wheel unspun
the last sleeve sewn.

the princess clouding capture
with a milky quartz
(tucked into a secret pocket

before the school bell) :

treading the springtide scriptures of a dream
coping with wrapped enigmas,
her tears of pearl recondite-

like everything else.
prayers with no transliteration, heard
even from such dim towers.

all you know.

mysteriously without the wind
the green tree tops begin to bend
taken up at the hem
the cherry-glazed day arrives:

the vivid rose ensoleil in the outer snows*

mary angela douglas 18 may 2009