It Felt Like 300 Years (Final Version) Formerly Titled That Old Riddle Time Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

whose riddles are these
I ask of Time:
you with your old school doorbell chime
you with your grade school tambourine,
your fairy tale costumes, your gumball machines.
the longer I stay here the more I sing:
it stretches out like a ragbag shadow
and springs back coiled like a screen door oiled
surprised it can still behave like a rubber band
the green or the red ones around the Sunday paper
we saved in the kitchen drawer...
and if I think about this enough
I will begin to sup again on vanilla wafers
till I hear the thud against the aqua green welcome mat
of the rival paper rolled flat as flat
will that take me back to gingham dresses too
just remembering the milk bottles cold, pale blue
on a doorstep set but where was that
or were there posies on a velvet hat
thunder clap! baby cap
a message on a scrap
of the King's best parchment
unscrolled so that the fairy tale Time
decrees the order of the day and all the villagers yelled hooray!
and when someone went away it felt like 300 years
what is it that we cannot comprehend despite our let's pretend
or clouded in tears or running the sap of dreams
and did we take sugar with our cream
so that we want to think we could sink back queasily again
as into a Christmas night pillow
all violetsblossoming back to bud reversing everything
we are so convinced if we just found the gate
we could be at the beginning of gardens again
in just a twinkle of a persimmon star
a starched out wrinkle
a candy jar
but it's all mystery not a pocket watch to wind
not the railroad kind.
with the golden chain, and delicate engraving;
the refrain in the folk song
that keeps coming back like a wave
to the time of cherries and their stones
the pine branch scraping against our home.
and oh my trees, the feeling we would always be with you
not deserting you like a breeze.
sweetly, unconsciously
with all there was to tell
not forgetting to say: farewell.
well in advance of parting
mary angela douglas 3 january 2022; 29 january 2022; 26 march 2023