THE SCARLET LEAFED, THE DAY LINED IN GOLD

the scarlet leafed the day lined in gold
your earliest alphabet foretold
by kind relatives

the way the leaves seemed to fall
before you where you walked
and you picked them up

and carried them home
thinking you would save them;
sad beyond the possibility now

or then to say that they would fade away
especially the ones all red and green and
yellow-orange melting together

October's map all there.
or we would pick blue jay feathers
from the ground and Grandmother would say

bird fever, be careful, but we still would prize
them as if they floated down from Heaven
and still I remember the mockingbirds cry

from the yard when we opened the window
in our blue room and how it settled in me familiarly
so that later, reading Rilke

I understood the crystal space
the nest in my heart
for them all

was there from the beginning

mary angela douglas 8 march 2016