The One All The Caroling Was For Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

can I help it that I want to read books
where children eat bowlfuls of raspberries
with bavarian cream

in sweet little bowls with apale green glaze
and under the trees in a matching shade
and where there is just enough breeze

to make the summer, Spring
can I help it if in a once upon a dream
I manage to go back there

in the pastel tinted train and ticketless
that used to run round the park
oh never deliver me

from the firefly dark again
or from lingering at the table
over the perfection of Neapolitan ice cream

chocolate, vanilla and strawberry
all at the same time.
from the chime of the xylophone

at the school assembly they let me play
and tambourines and folkloric dance costumes
sewed by our mothers.

some things should stay
like thick snow skies the school week before Christmas
and the inexpressibility of sparkling and reverence

comingled in the air
about us everywhere,
the love of home

the deep inhalations of the fir trees
and even alone
the stained glassed feelings

the Christmas lights in brilliant shades
resembling the Renaissance at its apex.
crowned with angel or star

and the baby Jesus we loved in the small window creche
like he was our own shy little brother
the one all the caroling was for.

mary angela douglas 21 novemer 2017