And No Bird Sang Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

if a sad riddle is solved

regaling not, the rose rhapsodies

should the princess learn to smile again

or the would be prince cum bumpkin

be at least festive he did not perish

through finding it unsolvable

is it really all relative to the outcome

because the riddle even solved

is still tragic even if you solve how it

happened minus the seven swans and the pear

tree and who is no longer with us like a 13th

fairy

at the dining room table when we use the

pink linen tablecloth and napkins

and the cut crystal dish for the cranberry

sauce, the parfait trifle or

she is just rifling through antique magazines

for the fairy stories sniffed the neighbors;

the households strung with fairy lights

keeping the moon up at night

the worthless differences and shades of how

she got lost in the maze

we always knew she would

once science killed off all the fairies

and the fairy rings faded colour by colour

and blossom by blossom

decolonizing the bees

so that truly in the world

nothing flowered anymore or sneezed

(and dream zeppelins went down in flames)

at least, not according to activist poets

and no bird sang just because
it wanted to.

mary angela douglas 4 november 2022