You'll Trudge On Through The Fairy Wood, Slightly Alone Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

you'll trudge on through the fairy wood all alone
the others having been taken by the hand,
led back another way

to where there is bread
spread with honey butter.
prom invitations
formals in frothing pink or blue
shoes that match the occasion

of those who withhold approval
for sport
in Shangrila. oh la di da

and yet in your checkered blue
your ruby slippers will do.
when

small doors are shut tight
against the chill..
you wander at will

encouraged by other things.
piano sounds like Spring in any season
the masterpieces of literature.

four for a paperback dollar.

oh how unkind you cannot even think
in the finger freeze of the mittens dropped
along the roseate way.
where they think you don't have much to say.

you're on the brink of falling into
the well where no wishes are

until you see one star
floating on one scrap of cloud of lilac
above this sodden earth oh sprig of lilac
fragmentary poem

graduations ghosts try snatching at you
looming from the schoolrooms
with their bleak gossip
no one to sigh over you then

they 'tsked' on afterwards
as if they knew.
how could they.

ah, but
only by you
as the wind whistled through

as though you were a looking glass
sent to warn them off
did the storybooks open
at the right page

implied the attending angel
after awhile

staring through the disappearing
with nothing like a smile;
beautifully wry.

mary angela douglas 20 march 2015'19 november 2023