Carving Words From This Thick Mist

carving words from this thick mist

no one will reward you.

sometimes the song

will dazzle you sometimes dissolve

even as you are singing it

sometimes you

won't distinguish your lament

from the clouds reforming

and reinhabiting without invitation

your clear castle of light while neighbors on every side

can only complain

they blame you for being the victim of miracles.

the victim of miracles.

the sound

of weeping

will echo there, your only nation,

as on the stairs, coming down after breakfast

through any window's glaze

you recognize the outline

of a desert you did not choose-

mary angela douglas 28 january 2009

To God My Father From A Dubious Kingdom

[...the One has far to go

Past the mirages and the murdering snow.

Edwin Muir, The Incarnate One]

I carried Your universe in my mind

through long years'

walking in winter's shade.

the winter sun shone

like icon gold whenever the cadence

of icicled stars so brightly sounded.

but veneration slept

and could not be wakened.

I saw the tears of angels freeze,

their stunning incapacity-

and seraphs of every nation

leave the room, too brokenhearted

when the chrism of sheer poetry

was voted down by those

who should have known better.

I saw the altar of numbers

and how nothing was

accounted for there

and scant children crying

for a loveliness departing,

kissing the outstretched

hands as though for the last time:

"come back...", mourning.

there were warriors

who fought from a cold and

impeccable emptiness

and could not win.

now ice has settled

over all of them

as in the Snow Queen's parlour

and we are wasted, waiting there

for one more performance review.

counting on You, just you to know:

the fugitive heart still

scanning- after all this snow.

mary angela douglas 4 january 2009;rev. 5 september 2014