Leaving Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

you will pack books, clothes, paintboxes
old woes, whatever else you can
in the time allowed

and now they're waiting for you
in the car and it's summer afternoon
as if it would be so forever.

this is going away you
would have said, if you had known that then.
but in a dream you relive it all

down to the least coin spent
on chocolate or on something cold to drink,
grape soda you never finished;

an afternoon mail's magazine not yet read.
and so much up ahead that thinking of it
is like staring into the sun.

back home
the toys for tomorrow cannot bend
without you; how will the shadows fall,

the moon come up over the driveway;
the garden roses fend for themselves?
you'll wonder this for years...

your loved ones turned a face to the wall
and could not cry all their tears.

mary angela douglas 18 june 2016