Never Are We To Perceive The Endings In The Clouds

never are we to perceive the endings

in the clouds;

what if they never come?

the dangerous horses pulling the coach

from the cliff as the princess is waving

her handkerchief of  finest mist

then falls away from the orphaned snows.

never in the clouds are we to let go

though everything we hold seems cloud-like to

the point of vanishing before we even know

what we have loved-

if we have loved-

mysterious God beyond reason

mary angela douglas 30 june 2013

Variation With Glitter

you seem to be getting your sparkle

back, my godmother said but not

drily, since this is not modern poetry;

I warned you.

go out to the pumpkin patch…

oh look, godmother, your breakfast is

boiling over, I lied, but only because

I was tired of bringing the pumpkins

in all day for the inspectors

after washing all those dishes.

well that could have happened

if Charles Perrault  had suddenly keeled over

elegantly, of course,

Into his golden baguette before

buttering it...

back to the story.

sparkling takes a lot of work unless

you’re a star or glitter my little sister

said having scattered it

all over the house in her own

personal glitter parade

the moral of the stories

oh my dears my dears

don’t stop shining

mary angela douglas 30 june 2013

Elementary School Daydream Reprise

cross-stitched, my bluebird, on a lemon sky

cross-stitched, my cherry tree

that will never be a pie-

and cross-stitched is the cottage

by the navy blue river I could live in-

if only my stitches were more even.

but I write in sloping letters on the blackboard

I love you all

and it doesn’t seem good enough to the Teacher

and I trip on an untied shoelace on the way

back to my desk near by

the drone of the pencil-sharpener curious.

and I wonder if we’re all meant to have leadership skills

where on God’s earth are they going to get all the followers?

mary angela douglas 30 june 2013

Lost Poets On The Decks Of Their Lost Words

lost poets on the decks of their lost words

are always setting sail and setting sail again

out of our sightless sight when the books are closed…

o open the Moroccan green Atlas

to the page with the sugar-candy stain

or the baby’s tears from 1913

and start, again

to read the golden primers of the sun

and, one by one, even if it takes all day

because

we’ve lost the maps to everything and cannot run.

the princess sits in the corner  incapable of spinning

forgetting  the way that mica flashed  in certain stones

on a path she knew was still her very own

not all that long ago

oh once there was a ship and laden

with so many things, it may be

every one was  only launched

from a far-off time

to thee…

mary angela douglas 30 june 2013

Out Of A Golden Nutshell Or A Sigh

[to poetry, itself]

out of a golden nutshell or a sigh

I whispered to the wind, let it begin.

the moon spilled ivory into my dream

and even the shadows were green.

and I believed in You so much,

how could I understand the outer languages

or why anyone would speak in them at all?

I saw I was here in the hereafter

already looking back on them.

and that was so long ago.

before School.

mary angela douglas 28 june 2013

SCARECROW NOT QUITE YET DISSOLVING BY ORANGE LOLLIPOP LAMPLIGHT

SCARECROW NOT QUITE YET DISSOLVING BY ORANGE LOLLIPOP LAMPLIGHT

the scarecrow mixed his tenses but

he smiled

although inside he was

weeping straw, sometimes-

he gestured with his rag-doll hands,

the very soul of courtesy.

oh did you hold onto the tangerine days?

each one was like a best balloon-

and straw-by-straw on your

lopsided way, find everything

was meant for you?

and we were sorry for the times

you skittered into the flame-throwers-

and so happy you were stitched up-

in the end-

mary angela douglas 10=11 february 2010

Holy Freedom Cried In A Cloud

holy freedom cried in a cloud,

the one that Blake sent

when the winds were soughing

green-starred,

forever at the beginning of all things

I wonder where you are.

holy freedom dreamed apart

far from the frontiers 

where they thought they gathered gold.

and the children weaned on your fairytales no longer

your bright blue that I held in my heart

wandered in a technical wilderness and cried

in the valley where the lilies hung their heads

and sighed not only when the winds blew

where are you

where are you

mary angela douglas 20 june 2013

To You, Reading Over My Shoulder

to you, reading over my shoulder,

may you find light in unexpected places

may the afternoon suddenly be wrapped in tissue;

ornamented with impossible stars waiting for you

to unwrap: soft pearl bright ribbons of the borealis

may it all unravel like a forgotten birthday.

we are untaught to take the sky-blue end of the crepe paper streamer and

keep following it

I’ll hold the other end

just as if it were a holiday neither one knew about.

there must be cake in here somewhere

they make you look for bitter things in your line of work.

or do they?

let’s pretend I cried only to the wind

you are in a honeycomb, believe me.

do not take burnished flight

until you reach the end of the story, even though-

how could I know the ending you were meant to find,

invisible watcher, watched over by God

reading over my shoulder

or Icarus, in the archives in the very clouds are

the blueprints into freedom someone somewhere stashed 

with a beauty overflowing, a glance over the shoulder

in the kernel of the word within the Word.

(in the government of  God, My King)

mary angela douglas 13 june 2013,27 november 2014