A Poem For Easter 2016

this time I will not rush the light
I promised You and I knew You heard
or fault your angels for appearing to slow

the crystal unwindings of my snows;
the fluttering of birds beneath
the window where I live.

I live but not in this instant not
at a physical address the one
you use on all the forms the one that

lets you be pin pointed in the surveys
on the grid where no one visits you.
somewhere else I used to live

where I played hide and seek with the sun
when under the skies of robins egg
blue I believed in all your Easters.

and I can go there
underneath all this
in my olive carcoat

counting the stars
that I remember from
those vanished skies

those vivid yards

and hearing music
I heard then
lodged in my heart

against the bleak ravages
of crows and so much else
that life surprises us with

in unwrapped packages
we'd like to take back.
I may not show

from year to year
the music that I really hear
sweet childhood's larks!

and though they may not understand
and think I'm in a foreign land
whenever they see me

if they see me

dear God,
I know where my home is still.
and that keeps out the dark.

mary angela douglas 23 march 2016