The Poem I Would Like To Be Has Crystal Birds

[to Henry Treece]

the poem I would like to be has crystal birds

singing on a string of utter loveliness decking

the earth and yet they

fly into an open blue.

translucent partitas, they never die.

the poem I would like to be

is often softest green transposed into scarlet;

burnished, it's the eye of the storm

furnished, the house not made with hands:

a tabernacle set with beryl

with carnelian with every childhood word,

Dove-bright, increasingly, a network of pearls.

or, may it be my better angels pale jade whispering of

the floating fleeting moonlight

memorized by leaves.

it's weeping beyond all heartbreak;

starriness swaying on the rims of flowers

in neglected fields.

beginning again and again

mary angela douglas 1 october 2013