the paper clouds are folded so it does appear then
out slips a snowflake or a tear I can't say which
yet cries a child how can I spell the years
that time of year,..said Shakespeare
knowing he was autumn burnished
in a burnished word no more
than bare branched aganst an ancient
English sky I sigh for him for Margaret
said dear Hopkins who only sighs for
Margaret let these leaves appear; then
melt away said Robert Frost that
nothing gold may stay I heard the choric
poets one by one
and saw them on a vivid stage one moment's
speaking in a gold, gold language
then they stepped away
and each particular sun went with them
leaving these shreds of light for us,
who cannot will them back.
mary angela douglas 3 june 2015
Note on the poem: This poem alludes to three semi autumnal poems: William Shakespeare.s Sonnet 73 (That time of year thou mayst in me behold when yellow leaves or none or few...), Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay and Gerard Manley Hopkins lovely poem Spring and Fall: To A Young Child (Margaret, are you grieving over Goldengrove unleaving)...I felt the music of these three poems unfolding in me as I wrote the poem and I imagined them, beautiful as they were folded, unfolded on origami paper of gold foil.
out slips a snowflake or a tear I can't say which
yet cries a child how can I spell the years
that time of year,..said Shakespeare
knowing he was autumn burnished
in a burnished word no more
than bare branched aganst an ancient
English sky I sigh for him for Margaret
said dear Hopkins who only sighs for
Margaret let these leaves appear; then
melt away said Robert Frost that
nothing gold may stay I heard the choric
poets one by one
and saw them on a vivid stage one moment's
speaking in a gold, gold language
then they stepped away
and each particular sun went with them
leaving these shreds of light for us,
who cannot will them back.
mary angela douglas 3 june 2015
Note on the poem: This poem alludes to three semi autumnal poems: William Shakespeare.s Sonnet 73 (That time of year thou mayst in me behold when yellow leaves or none or few...), Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay and Gerard Manley Hopkins lovely poem Spring and Fall: To A Young Child (Margaret, are you grieving over Goldengrove unleaving)...I felt the music of these three poems unfolding in me as I wrote the poem and I imagined them, beautiful as they were folded, unfolded on origami paper of gold foil.
