Spelling Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

we learned letters so that we could spell
and loved the spelling bees
thinking we were the flowers spelling


honey, there in the classroom sunlight
for a little while that seemed eternity
breathing the colours of words, the vowels


the constantly friendly consonants
who loved us.


the gold starred feeling too
of spelling the list, all the way through
and no mistakes


and matching the cake word to its picture
in a kid dictionary what pink what custardly content
candle by candle lent in state textbooks, owned before


until you can see it, say it, write it perfectly.
that came later. how huge our pencils were
so that they could be firmly grasped


in writing laboriously on pale blue
highways of lines that made me think
every time of summer lessons with


Grandmother, early music theory
the only kind I could understand
how forming the treble clef especially


seemed such a victory
and singing the alphabet song
and spooning alphabet soup


seemed mystically, naturally linked.
later I thought so long learning of Helen Keller
from a school fair paperback of her life


spelling water, and feeling the water run blindly
over her hands
and I thought the water of language


the language of water
and understood alone in the wood of my thoughts then
by the honeysuckle


what all spelling was for.


mary angela douglas 9 february 2019