If You Had Let Them

a voice within woods greenly cried
that tears of amber once flowed here;
then they solidified...

I knew this year after year
keeping it in mind over and above
best practices whatever, whoever

is meant by this. what is meant by this?
who's there, or what, behind scenes
shifting it all, decoding 'the best'

in offices, institutes
that very soon no longer needed your
services?

reminded the fairy lights
breaking into speech
over the Holidays...

they said you couldn't teach because

you see the world through a pink blur
and do not reason according to their reasoning.
depart the land of revisions because

you are not in tune they said, so not a good fit,
(so what?)
or would have said in the workshops, wreckage

of former mirrors held in place by darkening cherabim
in this, the land of the dim and dimming of the lights;
where it is perpetual night

in the ensuing classrooms
of those who remain to be seen.
you cantered away.

now you're collecting water clocks,
[even if not the things to eat,
all out of Time and teacups-

in an Alician field, smiled Mr. Caroll]

and ticks and tocks of the stained glass demesnes
that they disdained-
for your mysterious something

that couldn't be entertained in their contracts.
never the missing sky cloud jigsaw piece
no lily kiss of fawning peace

contest: in other definitions, something holy
depending on the context, contest: I do not beg to differ
but demand, not approbation but an alternative nation

one for whom dreaming words suffice.sighed oh sighed
the White Knight in the white nights?
be nice said the newly stern aggressively

and why did their voice always carry
even to the Space stations?
carry the One said Lewis

then divide the wave from the wave
the Sea from the sea in looking up
Infinity in the book with blank pages...

contest: what the knights were sent for
(in alternate ages)
if not this/ isn't this their trial?

the trail's confused, cried the bards mistaking the
civil court for the criminal one and we're
wandering wandering out again (step quick!)

God's nomad(s):through the corridors of music
unrestrained;
untrainable they would have said,

if you had let them.

mary angela douglas 18, 21 september 2015;2 march 2016