Blue Distances Don't Make Me Cry The Way They Used To

Anna Pavlova stepped onto another stage

at first, so imperceptibly,

in more than pave diamond Light.

it doesn’t take so much to know,

even in surroundings that new

she’d hardly feel the difference:  always dreaming

past you in her own distances, anyway;

waking up in this recurring dream

as it very driftingly came to her

that even when she was telling the

first dream to a dream-friend:

“I had this dream…”

she’s still in a

a subset of the

larger dream and

not awake yet…

will I catch fire?

she whispered to herself onstage-

upsetting the candles at the stage’s

rim (not knowing they were stars)

blue distances don’t make me cry

the way they used to;

will I forget how to breathe -  again-?

then, realizing  some mistake,

unfocused light,some trepitude, alarm,
a phantom fluttering of the heart already phantom

how will  I die here?

but that was earlier…and before-

fresh angels sewed

strange jewels on the

same costume

festooned her dress with unfamiliar flowers

and every step

and gesture she

remembered as if snow

could be conscious of snowing (itself)

again.

my feet aren’t bleeding  -anymore-

she marveled out of sight and

fluttering softly, softer through

such hues of silkeness beyond distress.

angels watched her turn

into a pearl diminishment of light

and trying to speak, but failing-

she found, with joy,

she couldn’t end-

that it was

like a mirror reflection endlessly

ribboning  into another mirror…

but real

and vivid fine crystal etched as

she always knew

the sheen of ballet could be

if one stayed up White Nights

to wind the music-box…
always running down

Anna Pavlova, I am standing still

I said softly to her there- and

not in a lithograph of my own time-

here at a door I’m not permitted to enter

with one rosebud 

question left, -I’m quarter-turned -  and unresolved

not wishing to wound my God, my Christ,

my Full-Blown Rose
trespassing on your wilderness, winter's bloom
an opalescence irretrievable now:

some questions don’t  belong to me at all

even if blue distances can’t make me cry
as Mandelstam, for the draping of another Anna's shawl
the profile swan, the living cameo...

the way they used to…

it’s only that it streams so hauntingly on and on… and  sometimes,

beautiful beyond bearing that

Anna Pavlova stepped out on another stage

surpassing all comparisons, and dying too many times

at last, perfected her crystal petit pointe

revealing  the flash-points of the Living Swan

and mignonette variations on the evening air…

though  it’s

perishable as any dream strophe can be:

let something heartfelt still seep through

like music from a far distant Court or undersea-

though it’s like baby star-shine

learning to be, “star”-not any star, but Yours, alone-

(my God)

Anna Pavlova stepped out on another stage:

when will Russia do the same...

through prayers barely spoken

it shall be wrought:

blue distances won’t make you cry anymore,

tenderly was whispered.

mary angela douglas 29-31  january 2012 rev. 8 january 2018