Thursday, March 24, 2016

His Stories Come To Light

[to Hans Christian Andersen]

the fragmentary stories of the blue
across the scudding landscape
come to view

across the light leafed pages of his dreams
and in the rose tints of a dawning stream
of endings and beginnings never gleaned

whence is he? the king in danish castle
wakes to sigh
across the rubied threshold of a mind

obscure, with poverty endowed and spoked
with light beyond the stray, the local cloud
hand painted in such colours, orchid rare

beyond the legends of the schoolrooms where
the floating snows reveal a magic land
apart from any other, on command

when children in the schoolyard lose the stare
of rudimentary knowledge brought to bear
and find instead a sky of glistening there

with kingdoms never after glimpsed again
but told and retold to the sheer, the dear
the wondering

delight of men

mary angela douglas 24 march 2016