FOR THIS

FOR THIS

for this I stepped onstage she thought
perhaps, towards the end
of the production

in a small part, with infrequent lines
to embroider rosebuds in the corners
of my mind as though my mind were

a cloud and very fine
superfine they might complain
but here I am to braid the rains

the silver with the silver
plum with plum in the afternoon
or to run on the plains at recess

when the day is done with the
jeweled bridle slipping a little:

a wild pony so that after years
when it may be difficult to walk
you will remember running like that

as you remember Easter hats with cherries
strawberries in high season, sugared, creamed
and reading poetry out loud not to any crowd

just to the unseen

just in your room pale blue with the white curtains
stirring in the winds coming through
to hear what you would do with Keats, with

Elizabeth Barrett Browning with a thousand sounds
with their jeweled awnings stretched over you
as though you were the bride, and the canopy, music.

I was here she breathed through the mists
in after years to embroider small rosebuds in the world
on an imagination lost at sea so that children after me

arising from a dreamless sleep might wake and see again
a sail! a sail!
even from a landlocked window

and exclaim
all this, is ours, forever, honeyed hours
and beauty after pain

to find this out is
why we came

mary angela douglas 11 november 2016