I SEE THEM BY MOONLIGHT, CROSSING THE LAWNS

 

"boys and girls come out to play

the moon doth shine as bright as day...'

-Old English Nursery Rhyme

I see them by moonlight crossing the lawns

in fanciful dress and with their antique toys

the children who make no noise by day

ghost children over the merry green

as seen by Blake or in other rhymes

of the English kind in the orchards of Walter

De La Mare

scooping bright berries with mirroring spoons

and under the

restless trees content with cherries; 

trailing the blue mists of dawn

and the rose ones.

silver in their play.

I see them stray and gather each other up

again

in circle games

and toss the ball into the heavens so that it

is meteor bright so

that the angels retrieve it, laughing

in their variegated Christmas moods.

and there is bread and milk for them as in a

fairy tale and

school out of doors even when the rain pours

and sweets too so that the air itself is spun

sugar and the

clouds.

and the milk is from the moon

and it shines like pearl poured from the blue

the dark blue

pitcher of the skies.

I see them, every boy and girl

and they are free from all that belies

as dreams are until sunrise and beyond

and the world for them is cloth of gold

as it was not on earth

they are made of the marigold sun the

morning one of mirth

and know all the exits into God. and right

from wrong

and have left me this song.

mary angela douglas 11 july 2020;rev. 20 june 2022