On This Revolving Stage-Set, Earth (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

etched in the fossil of time are the tears
of those who went before on this
revolving stage-set; silver the vein

of laughter; caught, the gold of
sitting on the childhood floor
fastened in a fleck of moonlight.
past bedtime, mashalling the toys
trying not to make noise

dear God. are You near?

I know you are.
because you were
on this revolving stage set

where we haunt their mirrors

and stand where others stood in
the petal drifting springs;
the heavy rains at the bus-stop.
we tread on their amber shadows

on the train. in old apartments,

on cracked linoleum
or worrying about work
we stand at their windows.

even in the grocery aisle,
it's already started.
absentminded, we fill our cart
with toffees they once craved
tuned into their parades,
Sousa and the rest of it
in brittle summers, peerless
as before

And I find at home old autograph albums
with valentine emblems pasted in
how richly the fern and the rose commend

the swain to his grammar school love
the sepia ink in curlicue penmanship
has darkened, held in Your hand
while the sorrows burned.
the perhaps crops failed

dear God you were here

and You preserved, for them
within our footstep's footstep
a little sentimental
this crease in the drifting snows.

mary angela douglas 19 february 2014; 8 november 2023