I Saw A Shimmering Country in The Clouds

[to the memory of my Grandmother at the piano]  

I saw a shimmering country in the clouds

and I cried.

Rose-petal showered was that morning,

honey spread on bread, toasted clear amber;

welcome on marigold welcoming farther and farther away

yet gathered within, a white flowered perfume unstoppered

elegantly for the Lord.

and rose-gold note sustained.

where will we be fed again

as in the kingdoms wavering between

sleep and the almost jeweled but

seldom crowned on this side of things.

the blue grass fades past the windows

whirling out of Oz with the four leaf clover

pressed in the book of the Pleiades.

I met sheer poets there, so early in the day

before the long rains came;

plaster of paris clarity of the great composers.

and after the zinnias.

behind these winter trees the skies are mauve

but chords on a cloud piano seem so unresolved.

like the nightingale trill in my one nocturne.

now who has led them away in chains

missing the harp’s glissando

under the fifth column

of the Stars-

mary angela douglas 23=24 october 2012