Oh Life Of The Deep Dish Cherry Pies And The Sudden Discrepancies Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

oh lifetime of cherry pies, of the sudden discrepancies.
you, with your quicksilver yearning to fly but
stay cried the child through tears for the years of

the mama departing to get groceries; imagining
she would not return.
and she sat down on a sunny step overcome

on this thin porch; too young yet to tell the difference
between one goodbye and another;
feeling that to disappear round the corner

was not to be ever coming back.
and so, that was you: in your small blue dress, disconsolate.
prescient, perhaps considering what

happened later.

what cannot be learned is second sight though you
fling the leaves of shadows down
the dream trees growing out of time

she said she said to the wind
outside the school choruses;
the December madrigals

I'll wait for you here and
standing still in a circle of small stones
that mark these rooms in the dust.

sweep with pine twigs all of this, you must
she sighed to herself
not only on Saturdays that the

marigold light will filter through the afternoons
and laugh and play that it may
always be this way was her final

word on the subject where we said 'no backs, no backs'
even while playing jacks; even then,
the sorbet sun would be already melting

where only the small birds heard and chirped
in a fond, green answering music:
'forever. always...

mary angela douglas 12 september 2015