I dreamed of the sea, of the Children of Lir
coming through the mists of their childhood
unrecognizably
oh beyond reach
let words be fought for but
what am I supposed to say
when saints have courted endlessly
the hard and diamond edge of
your impossible retrieval?
when are you coming home
o vivid heart eluding
bereavement, banished wing-
are you carving the thick tiered
wedding cake mists as if they
belonged to you?
when will you find rest
beating the crystal air to a
fine snow over centuries;
are you very nearly free
or do you dream your muted
carillons below
have all passed on?
it is a real question.
are you?
stay alive can you
be carried sleeping into
deeper exiles over
God's bright shoulder?
it is a real question are you
finding no more countries left
for you
on earth...
I lived as some suggested
sending golden transcripts off
somewhere into space
from brilliant institutions no one ever heard of
and the envelope sealed with evensong and
all the mauve distances dissolving...
are you the one
bargained over at sales
not open to the general public-
subject to steering committees
charged
with capturing the data?
let us return, unopened,
frailer than snow and so unchartered
to live in Danish stories, after all-
dreaming of journeys
over long waters
looking at light
through the spent leaf
and the mottled cloud
as if at a kingdom
somehow lost to me
still still my own
prospective student,
employee, friend,
any person at all:
launched to the unfairytale-like
docket with a
mirage-like defense
jump over the railing!
there's no qualifying ground
for one so fey and the wild swans must
move through
the lilac foaming of their weariness.
it is also true
the glimmer of your sunset mind
is a sheen of no use to them at all
and will count against you at the agencies
more than the questions you leave
blank
when you're combing the waves
oh not
for 3 good references and a jacket
they can believe in.
then you'll descend, dear
Christmas-bright contestant, saint
like the exemplary
Children of Lir with your
one cloud-sleeve unfinished
down to the violet waterline at last:
caught up by sudden angels on command-
recommended by the wounded Trinity-
weeping poems and
the clear bells
of little stars
mary angela douglas 16 august, 14 august, 20 july 2011
