By The Light Of Flickering Words

by the light of flickering words

I followed the forward motion of Your stars

as a serious hour grew into years.

You stood beside me-

I always knew-

when the spent tygers of

the soul could

forage no longer when

wound on wound unfolded,

o inexorable Rose-

they have stolen in the dead of all nights

your shining language

and skewed it like a bow-

and the arrow lodges, day

and night, dead-center, as its poison flows and flows.

now the careful distancing begins

with the craft of State-crafted words in full bloom:

"In the beginning was the Word" they long to shove

falling and falling into radio silence...

and the covert word in fool's gold

leaps out from prepared speeches

to murder God, again-

and the honied word sells out to scattered applause

or only numbness on what seems to be

only a simple weekend in spring oh but

isn't this always the way that it begins.

through blinding tears I must cry out!

oh why

must they uproot the lilies the lilies of the mind

in full view?

but this thin flame can never illumine enough

it's you and you, alone cut down

through all Gethsemanes remaining

Remain.

then I will wander

from star to star,

not comfortless!

holding fast this music

holding fast this music

still

mary angela douglas 4 april 2010, Easter