Fire Opal

[to Gerard Manley Hopkins]
to the Living God...

on the day I heard of Your fire opals
I cried: where is a fire opal language
the one you've hidden from us somewhere beyond

our pride
all hours I might have thrown away
or crumpled needlessly, I want to say

to speak alone in fire opals along a

glittering way that will not disappear
though there is none to hear
and firework clear beyond all jewel work known and

dazzlingly,
there must be this little, blinding language, out of sight

like rainbows redacted from tears
from the inward collapsing of castle dominoes from
the sudden fears the flights that won't let go that

take the icarian

children captiv;, captive my dreamers, falling away

falling away all is exile then, all dream speech, reft
from the scriptless heart the poets stricken

for years missing they knew not what
composing in the dark
mute in their transcriptions,then,

drowning in lamentations without recourse
stunned into silence.and there is no diamond, rubied
flare there, no sight, but, blighted emeralds

at once! dispersed banished in
such pure astonishment, small glories, syllables
brought to the coiling surface of their seas. how much you

cherished Light to speak us into it at the beginning

to refract it this- this endlessly...
how can I, can I even know
the least fringe of this brilliance, universe, universe

in the small stones gathered; the ones we would have thrown
away carelessly, needlessly ah, how you shattered
beauty there and caught these colours fountaining forever

You said, You cried.
and it was So.

mary angela douglas 8 may 2015;16 march 2016