VIVID

 

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