You Would Wear Pale Yellow Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

for Sharon, my sister


you would wear pale yellow

and all would be silk

and we would always


drink our milk

and listen for chimes

for bells that rhyme


going up and down the scales.

for ice cream sales

for the gold stars showered


on the page we learned.

life could be that way

the drawing of the rose drapes


in the afternoon

because the studio light

is infinitely bright


and Grandmother plays the piano

on more than St. Cecilia's day

when Mama comes to stay


and white clover is thick all over the backyard.

how could Heaven not be this

grandfather under the lamplight


reading his newspaper

and we are all home.

I think of this sometimes now


whenever I'm alone how

love, once lived, cannot disappear

except into God.


mary angela douglas 23 november 2019