Midnight Blue Tea Set From An Undetermined Dynasty

golden cranes weeping on a tea set of midnight blue

when weeping is flight away from and not to

and mother of pearl detail on a screen of 

purpling fantastic lament;

the selfsame century.

or maybe not. a silk-screened contract.

the poppy opulent fan.

what am I bid for the tea rose scents of a dilemma;

for the carnation silks of the trepidation when you watched at some dawning distance from events

the auction of the bride cast down by the casters

and forecasters; it's the bride cut out from the

seed pearl morning by a child: the seed pearl morning

and the poem

of the far-off intuited disaster.

it's the lift of the golden cranes forever 

from a field of midnight blue on the trace of

the day you were born for;

and oh it's mine, it's mine, the repudiating star-

what am I bid.

and who will pour tea now for the ceremony

coming down around your head, your head

with its pearl thoughts braided and burnished

and burnished and banished 

from an ancient village that can't welcome you

when you catch your golden breath instead

of the hem brocaded on the terraces of grief.

your golden breath that was always going to be

going from not to

that was going to beat against the midnight blue

against  the midnight blue and win-

and the seed pearl illusions' shattering

someone

else, instead, from an indeterminate dynasty.

and fortune is yours still and the carrying case;

the mirror with its opal backed splendor'

the soul in its mother of pearl intractability 

of intricate detail

and the auction is not through-

it's not through yet and yet you are living

and in a little while the bidding will finish.

the bidding will finish on a fairer isle than this.

mary angela douglas 13 april 2014;rev. 16 november 2014