Greeting Card Land Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[to Hallmark and American Greetings greeting cards with love, not forgetting the penny valentines on thicker cardboard with one for the Teacher)

and to my mother who always sent me the best cards, hands down.

Greeting Card Land is the pleasantest
with curlicue writing on the clouds
and where, if we are good

the glitter snow comes down
and we walk in watercolours.
translucent is the sky

as though made of parchment
and we live on sentiments there
having little else to wear

and having nothing to confess

except on little candies
on Valentine's Day, bought by the bagful.
and all our artists paint the best

their assorted bouquets
for Mother's Day.
and each time:

crisply, brand new, wreathed in
ribbons crackling (with matching gift wrap!) .
and they pop out all over the place

the diecut bluebirds of happiness or I mean,
the sweet peas and the bows and the cakes of pinkish cream.
and we go dreamy dancing in the strawberry lanes

pristine in our petticoats

whenever we stroll by the lavender streams
with the old mill wheel turning
and turning

forever on display with felicitous quotes
in the drugstores of blessed memory
where it smells of tobacco and perfumes,

with their high floral notes and we, so merry,
in the cherished precints of the chocolate cherried.

mary angela douglas 5 february 2016