Wednesday, January 28, 2009

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

Tuesday, January 06, 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