green violins are drifting near the sun
I think of clouds as Marc Chagall
tipping his thick fingerpaint colors
over.
it runs together in my mind
with oil-spun opals on the concrete
or mirrored puddles I walk by-
concocting always other skies.
and Bella, with hidden lilies in her eyes
composed and bridal as before
and the confetti roses raining.
and rising over rooftops after rain
is a corsage of lilac...
her last tear.
it's living through these shifting rainbows here
springing up again - I know that
I'll survive:
holding my pitcher's terra cotta
up to the fountaining sky-
reading the holograph upside down while
hoping to catch one green violin
with spiraling music rose rose red
or the flowing parachute moon
as it sails down
the clockface of the clotted
clouds and citadel,
dissolving;
the sequined-velvet pear just ripe
from ever and ever the
tree of night
and sewn like a charm
at riddle's end unraveling,
shaken out of a dream you
won't remember
you'll be reminded
by a torn-out scrap
so evident to you then
as the tear-stained apple-green scrawl
of the Pirate's best hand with
one tiny diadem's cornered clue remaining:
for the almost perfect fingering of the blue viola-
or a single silver day-
mary angela douglas 28 october 2010
