Alice, in her new, red-hooded coat,

late afternoon in spring-and-sunlight garden,

watches bubbles float a hundred rainbows

round her head. And she has endless time

 

for ants, the weeping tracery of snails,

for raindrops, tiny feathers,

and all the small eternities she sees

in pebbles on the gravel path.

 

Alice knows, as poets do,

that life is slow. If she had words

she’d let her Grandma know this April day

will never end. But poor Grandma

 

pretends the world moves fast,

thinks bubbles always burst; imagines

shadows racing through the woods,

hears something knocking, howling at her door.