The Missing Detail In The Picture, The White Roses

[to the poets of World War I]

the missing detail in the picture, the white roses.
why do the white roses
cast no shadows

on the green grass there are other shadows
the house has shadows, the child in the grass
with the azure ball that cannot bounce there

the vines on the white walls of the house
but the roses.
white roses cast no shadows in the painting 

on the green garden and where are the endings of
the words that would have passed inspection. anywhere;
the answers cast no shadows on

the pavements in the rains, the scented gardens.
how blinding are the roses and the
seraphim near the old refrains the

summer children singing of the azure

then the speeding shells the
toppled oranges in the orangeries
frame by frame the

azure ball blown skyward and the

white roses under all this moonlight
still cannot find
their shadows except in my poem. it is this nearness

I am writing about-
so close you are standing the next one summoned, next to

the white roses the apparition of the sunset

the last bar in the music (but it isn't finished!).
the white the red the peach rose blurred and foundered.

the open cannonades the canons withold your names
the letters forever summoned snow on snow
departing, unanswered unstoppered like the white rose perfumes

book without pages
poem without lines
and drifting now unrecognized.

banished from earth they will bloom elsewhere

mary angela douglas 19 january 2015;21 january 2015