Dorothy Toward Oz, The House Never Settling (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

(random thoughts while filing O through Z)

(for L. Frank Baum)



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sometimes the heaviness of earth...

seems as though it should plunge from space free falling forever

with its boardgame houses and lamp posts, leftover candies

amazed pets, cherry toffee medicinal brandies;

the mind grows faint. how will the sun set on the emporiums?

where will it land, the earth, in the blue dahlia dusk?

the canyon of the

blue dahlia dust at last, with the winds sifting the gold ash of

leaves or in the mazed confusion of aquariums

bobbing in the overspill of oceans

or where the weddings veil it

the debutantes of Infinity

or will it plummet tumbling these: lost brides, stray tides

like a load of wash through an

unrelieved depth spinning, spilling all the coffees and contents,

the fairy tale porridge, the orange crayons...

the last of the summer tomatoes,

all that moonlight...and seasonal candles

for when the sun is dead?

Dorothy toward Oz...the house never settling.

the earth is heavy with cries. with citrus

with the little devastations.

thistles. and small thimbles

with the accumulation of tears and invoices

the apothecary mortar and pestle

the unresolved alchemies

of all the unfinished symphonies

the Fairs to come suddenly canceled

with funnel cakes and fries,

recriminations. attic crinolines

and carillons'; picnic baskets packed-

hotel dining rooms intact

with little pats of butter, soft white rolls.

all the sundries and the mondays

untethered maypoles,

ribbons flying through the pastel cyclones

with random coronations thrown in

with gold leafed, French

medieval illuminations.

the tree ringed years on years.

dust and tumbleweed reeling

through the cinemas of our lost feelings

useless moats; the old drug stores

leapfrogging over the ice cream floats, the piano notes

the small fans whirring

oh kaleidoscope turning in olive and rose

weather broadcasts of highs and lows

caught up by angels wings or plummeting in flurries'

poor ruby Sandcastle

I mourned for thee sloshing, dissolving in your own pearl seas

oh that you were a cloud and could drift away, dear earth,

dispensing yourself in the rose palette colors, photo finish amber

and vanish

like an O. Henry ending into mild paradox

watch chain without the watch, how will I wind thee...

but it remains with its mystical diaries

its broken clocks

its o I cannot find Thee

bright on the gales scattering the Pleiades

and the afternoon mail

I plead for thee

heavier than all things, said Rilke

of your violins

flowering flowering

into the sleep of roses

the last sky's tinge

the sweet door hinge to God.

mary angela douglas 11 november; 12 november 2021; 16 february 2022; 8 april 2023