Who Will Take The Song And Lead It Home (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[in memory of my grandfather, Milton B. Young]

who will take the song
and lead it home
like a lost child

on paths overgrown too long

to trace
or will this music fade
with no one left
who remembers

we were sitting on
a summer's curb
and the ice cream truck
went the other way

the balloon man went
north as many poets have explained before me:
the snow cones
melted after a death

in the family the storybooks
in the attic were
no longer stored

who will take the child
and lead her home
like a lost song

past a screen door never slammed
past fireflies scattered
in the dark:

holding hands as we cross
a street far wider than
before

we seemed orphans
on the curb of the universe
incapable of choosing
left or right

hoping to be found by nightfall
by angels or by someone else
hearing the dogs bark into their

bluest twilight
the children at ghostly games;
sensing the chicken pie for

dinner, the frosted cakes
the important birthdays
and the pink-bowed presents;

the Easter eggs forgotten in the grass
where dew fell last

waiting, again-for summer to begin

or just to be called inside.


mary angela douglas 24 february 2009l 29 september 2023