Magnolias In A Silver Bowl Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

starting over again in the beautiful world you imagined

when you were small or smaller than now

with your eyes closed in front of the rose garden breathing it in

and making the sky blue crayon go far because of course

when colouring in, the Heavens were most important

you remember how much you loved your dolls and bears

and books with gay pictures and looking glass investitures

and the pure magnolias Grandmother set

in her sterling silver bowl, the one we were baptized from

at home with my sister and I

by our pastor, R.D. Adams

and I remember music pouring all afternoon from the sunroom

where my Grandmother taught children to play the classical pieces

we loved forever from daily repetition and glass records and Debussy

we could listen too endlessly on her stereo all the Great Composers

and that seemed natural to us so that we heard glissandos in our dreams

and tried to sew the fairytale seams or the cross stitch embroidery

she taught us and managed to sew on buttons, take up hems in the end

prepared for the modern world or what was called modern then

by reciting the psalms and the book of John

and that was home with the yellow light on the porch that red brick house, the mimosa trees in front

and if I could have I would have lived there the way it was then

forever.

mary angela douglas 23 january 2023