Ruby Throated Christmas At The Last

[to William Butler Yeats]

the sands run down your ruby-throated glass

and up and down the scales of words that

can't sit still, you sing:

the dulcet chords still stringed;prolonged,

the glass bells chiming in the Christmas air

though for not much longer

will the angels gather, as they did long ago

above the children, anxious to go home

and break the silver envelope of pain

surrounding the outer atmospheres again

and smash the harps of stone

and pluck the silver from the moon.

bright poets the brightest in the room
how empty, empty is the loom
how we've forgotten all that sings,

that sang oh, that-

suddenly, in a tower's room

you'd start to hum a tune you

thought you never knew before

with the cabinet crystal shining.
conspirational. and more,

the violet figure at the door
of Radiance returned.

mary angela douglas 21 november 2013;13 january 2016

Note on the poem: "glass" in the first line refers to

hour glass, and ruby throated of course

to the ruby throated hummingbird a feeling

about time and memory intensifies.

(as in Yeats, like music)