Tuesday, January 31, 2012

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