For Dylan Thomas In The Dark Blue Dusk, The Gilded Dust Of Words

FOR DYLAN THMAS IN THE DARK BLUE DUSK, THE GILDED DUST OF WORDS

[for the poet Dylan Thomas, his every word]

as you were singing that the givers of Light
would have no end that the green rills
growing greener would furl in waves

about us ever near and clearer from year to year

and that the sun dipped in the clouds down low
would ever arise

somewhere farther beyond your white roads' chrism
we forgot that poetry is not prose
and no longer gathered the rose upon rose

the once upons.
so that the prismed web broke apart weeping
and with it the human heart my heart and where

and what and how in Art will the angels come
to trouble the springs again my friend

my friend
so that healing descends

when your voice is stilled
when the news is all we know
I cannot comprehend

only that vaguely

blue and darker blue with the dusk
as your disguise the village from afar
you'll view

and weep for Wales and all you knew

the vast tendrils conquered and subdued
for all that meant to you.
and we go casting about in sighs

mere ghosts of ourselves
forgetting what you knew.
that bright words, should not be spare

but myriad, like the stars.

mary angela douglas 24 november 2016;22 october 2021