Broken Angels

[Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!

from "Lenore', Edgar Allen Poe]

broken angels that from the winter window sills inclined

how is it that your brokenness still shines

when I have swept your glass from the pavements of

my mind? what ravages are left behind

unguessed from the luckless mirrors refracting your designs

as it is replayed, time after an inevitable time

and always with your wind chime's benediction it's just

one ride more on the carousel's swaying on the ledge

and there you go, unparachuted, a leaf? a flower?

while the wind weeps, stay, o stay:

this is not the looking glass hour of domino folding

tower to tower when

the creeping ivy glows so far away, the little plants of

what you called your home; the magazines of yesterdays yellow and crimp in sundry piles;the vintage books

with none to read the pages you had folded down

while treading in the deep of

week to week before no flight at all.

now all's past reading sing the icarian choirs

so little sleep you had then. rest, while I implore

may I fold down your wings that couldn't sustain and

close the eyes of vivid death once more and so-

be done?

or like a ghost in a turnstile that won't turn

beneath a never varying sun

keep gathering up like a heavenly chore

until my own pace slows to pulse of snow,

and then, no more of sorrowing gleam on gleam.

the ever recurring dream of broken angels

mary angela douglas 12 october 2014