Washed Farther Downstream

[“In my Father’s house there are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.”

-Jesus]

leaving your home on the twenty-second eviction

you turn again to the house within:

the one with too many windows

twice as many wreaths at Christmas time

with the bayberry sun aslant

the roof of winter and all the lights on.

God lives upstairs in the duplex

where it’s always raining but He alone loves you

constantly.

there’s no soap to wash your clothes

you mention shyly to the judge in

small claims courts all over the Land

when the creditors don’t show up

to hear your story.

only the court appointed lawyer

who says in the end, I see no reason not to sue.

and the Judge says kindly you should go

back to school

and I say I'd like to learn Russian which

startles him, though I meant it

for Beauty.

and forms to fill out for food require

your answer twice a year

have you committed a felony?

do you know someone who has?

or do you eat alone.

(No. God’s here, too I write in pencil and then don’t

mail it when I think how can they ask that.)

but you’re the curator of stars

though no one says so

assuming you lack the expertise

and thank God that they still shine so in your dreams

as if it were sweet Bethel; it is certain

you know how to forbear: keeping the secret still

that you’re the Princess in disguise though

like a sea-breathed myth you’re lost on land

or seem to be

as in the Hallmark film of The Seventh Stream

you took home for free from the Library

through tears that no one saw

later on, for that late lamented music box scene.

and then, it’s a wild violet spring where you may

find any moment the path lit brightly by the stones

so milky in the gloaming, mysteriously glazed-

you piled up after school so long ago

with a small Queen’s unaccountable forethought, prescient                                                                                                                                 in the berry-threaded woods beyond your years

for the Palace on green velvet moss you would

make here, after years,

washed farther -  downstream….

mary angela douglas 13, 8-9 september 2012