all images of beauty are effaced
by the conquerors when they come-
all images are subdued
by tribunals who organize
to excise from the children's texts:
"Beauty is truth, truth, beauty."*
and all illustrations of ineffable
mystery.
the red rose bordered hem of Yeats
and myriad other singers of the real-
the true, my shining God-
are banished
(by whom and for what purpose?)
from the coffee houses of the free-
mary angela douglas 8 november 1997
*John Keats, "Ode on a Greecian Urn"
