Another Crystal Ship Is Going Down

[for the poet John Keats]

“ whose name was writ in water”

for Immortal, Timeless Poetry…and the children-                            

for whom it was all and will be, written down.

and not forgotten…

“The very music of the name has gone…”

John Keats, Endymion

and for Dr. Robert J. Connelly

another crystal ship is going down

there where the violet waters cannot reach the sun

or where, the bargained-over heart

is run aground

no longer feeling anything at all

for the Attic messengers berated and                        

berated and  

thrown overboard

in waters that won’t register the sound

of this bleak sowing.

the moon on bartered waters gives no light.

dim are the trees that used to

green the shore.                                                                                                  

jingoistic captains seize the day:

cueing the numb musicians on the deck

for one last, auctioned song

to bear doomed passengers along

cold, flooded passageways.

we’re losing time and memory every day

observing the Grail float by us on the Tides

and willing it all away to starfish

while we just hang on in the frozen waters

to the driftwood prayers

we must remember…

“Our Father…

another crystal ship is going down-

another and another – everywhere -

alive with diamond words…

that must be spared

though we’re -  just – ballast - to them:

the odd Ringmasters crowing

at the glint of Beauty drowned

and going down

they’ll claim -but it’s not true-

in Ophelia-coloured waters=

Not - this - time.

for we have heard-

though half-awake

the mist-bright mermaids surging Home

and we may see, half-blinded through our tears-

that when curbed lovely words

disintegrate – they cry out in soft rains:

“Hallowed be thy Name”…

however long we wait, we wait

at the edge of these coiled waters-

clear on their Return on the evening's tide.

pearl were the hulls

now singing on their way, so “optional”.

sheer Pearl, the tears of God

who only sent them all  

(“Deliver Us From Evil…”)

to save our children

in the glacial days ahead…

treading implacable waters…

mary angela douglas 18-20 april 2012