PAVANE FOR THE PRINCESS BREAKING INTO FLOWERS
[in memoriam to my mother, Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas...]
like a tree they couldn't stop breaking into flower
her words were, by the hour by the jeweled minute,
even the last minutes though I didn't know
but I imagine it so
castled on the crystal chess board fastened to
weights of lead you thought everything she said
would disappear snatching the sainted reliquaries
troding down her rose gardens.
it is you who will come transparently
to the weddings
and unacknowledged
draining the punch bowls dry.
a miracle, the wedding crowds may cry
gazing in rapture
at the empty bowls
while her soul flowers
all sistine on the ceilings
and blue green in the shoals
beyond, beyond their control.
mary angela douglas 17 may 2015
castled on the crystal chess board fastened to
weights of lead you thought everything she said
would disappear snatching the sainted reliquaries
troding down her rose gardens.
it is you who will come transparently
to the weddings
and unacknowledged
draining the punch bowls dry.
a miracle, the wedding crowds may cry
gazing in rapture
at the empty bowls
while her soul flowers
all sistine on the ceilings
and blue green in the shoals
beyond, beyond their control.
mary angela douglas 17 may 2015
