Music Box Refrain On The Day Doc Watson Died Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

maybe the moon will rise in full gold foil
behind a tissue paper page
and we will sigh
and it will be the wind not turning

maybe in dreams to green laments that
can't come home to stay and breaking off a sprig
I will awake with only mint for sweetest tea

and sweet gum things to say to the fire fly littered dark
proving again that I was there, still happy-
when the moon rose full in golden foil
behind the tissue paper page and

the small key dropped on a summer day
dripping strawberry coned cream into the grass
is found and fits the lock of

the golden moon foiled perfectly
behind the tissue paper page I'm holding down and
cannot bear to turn…sweet music, stay-
all mountain-bred and livelier as the day

wears on…now I hear everywhere and
all alone on some far stage
blue diamond notes cut sharp, distinct and

scattered everywhere like stars…

and the wild brooks berried by are rushing on
and cannot be contained on earth…but only in that music

till all my tired-out pinafores are
pegged and snapping on the breeze
and the whole picnic's thrown overboard

tear dropped spilling suddenly
into dusk blue grass and the perfumed wailing
of the gnats; oh, don't you mind

I guess though it's
not rounded off at the corners yet,
or cherrystone riddle unraveléd:

here's my sour green apple, candied, shining
fizzled goodbye…

at the tip of what's not
possible to say.

I'm not that rock candy hard but this is
…like the last wind licked and tucked away beyond too soon

because the page is still strumming light
when angels on fresh apricot mandolins join in

and the song's refrain
that we can't hum is intricate as Kingdom Come

it's:
maybe the music will not end
maybe the music will not end…

mary angela douglas 30 may 2012