To Mary Queen Of Scots As A Child Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

they dressed you in rose colours perhaps
as a child and this made it easier it may be
to endure what came later

rose colours at the beginning of things
as if you were a flower yourself
or felt like one at occasional recitals

when you played the baby nocturne
excerpts from the summer nights
so endlessly starry how could you think

anything could go wrong
on earth it is this way we are preserved
by certain details

the cirrus brushstrokes in a summer sky
the flavor of tangerines.
the palest palest greens.

this is outside of history
outside of the turgid news
and the newsreels where the exiled disappear

the smoke of old trains running off the reels
at school and the classroom darkened
for the occasion.

you will remember aeons later
they dressed you in colors of the rose.
and compose yourself for the great tragedies

coiled inevitably around the thrones.

mary angela douglas 23 february 2017