So Beautiful Are The Cupolas Under The Solar Flares

[to certain echoes of Akhmatova]

so beautiful are the cupolas under the solar flares

I could look everywhere never finding

anything to compare in the history of light.

but you have taken wing

I suppose, like Icarus

in the first frost of it all;

while in a sky-blue shawl

I have said all prayers twice over

for things beyond repair.

my soul is azure, sapphire set against your gold...

and willing to admit without tears

that the scent of grass is cold in all the Capitals.

that nothing is more vital in the raspberry-gilded air

than all this shining

and the luminescence of the failed poets

mary angela douglas 30 september 2013