To All Those Beaten Well Behind The Scenes

[to Lawrence Housman, maker of brilliant fairytales (especially,

“Rocking-horse Land”)

and to anyone on earth who feels or has ever felt trapped…]

“…when I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me…”]

-Psalm 42:4 The Holy Bible

to all those beaten well behind the scenes

scope out the golden corner in your mind

the last one left and

touch the panel in the wall behind your back

and turn around three times in

the 3-inch track they’ve left you with the one rose bush

they forgot to pluck up by the roots-it’s there for you,

the one star they forgot to block from the cindered sky;

to all those bruised invisibly I cry

there is a finer kingdom in your mind

one sapphire staircase down

so plan your exit well and soon

before the beryl blazing of the moon lights up

the washed-out wastelands far behind

and the mission scrubbed without you.

do not turn back

but find instead, renewed,

the wings not made of wax

you labored on in the jeweled rhyme

the Red Sea parting at high noon

or the provident Ark in time patched high,

high above the Flooded lies-

stocked well and dream-on-dream

packed solid, locked and clicked so china-cabinet bright:

sealed from the inrush of the universal seas-

on the ceaseless starry rocking-horse of God

little children, little child grown up

to ride -  and ride - and ride-

mary angela douglas 1 october 2012