Mr. Sycamore Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[a meditation on a beautiful performance, a beautiful film:
Jason Robards in Mr. Sycamore]

you may be standing in an open field
and as it happens, all of a fairy tale sudden
your hands break into blossom, your feet

into roots and you don't mind the rain
and then
the thought of leaving leaves you.

and do they miss you much?
acquaintances from school,
the clerks at grocery stores?

they never knew you well.
now small birds come
like fluttering rainbows to

your branches. twigged in all the weathers,
and you are happy.
speaking the wind's own language

as if you knew it, all along...

mary angela douglas 5 may 2015; 16 march 2016