Stringing My Illiterate Lyre

STRINGING MY ILLITERATE LYRE

stringing my

illiterate lyre

I shriek bird cries

within the morning-

fragile flutter

at my ribcage

flights of an austere passion-

breaking for the Sun

when you go

past the Madonna

marble shatters:

complicating moonlight

in your mind

oh bruise the

denying rituals;

cry bright ascent

in darkness:

Christ broke his body

on the sun

where Beauty breaks the prisons of our sleep

mary angela douglas 

Fontbonne College

St. Louis Missouri

September 12, 1970