Then, Vanishing Away

[on the Legend of the Lady of Shalott]

her face in a dream floats on the waters
or like nebulae among deep stars
in a field of vision

yet unmarred by tears
because it is too still.

where are you she must ask again
of all her years or we may ask
in her stead

though clouds have no answer

nor does the dusk,
dressed in the blue of the departed hours.

is it enough that once you were weaving

all that the heart could sense
from distances, from renunciations
made gladly

until you broke in several pieces

the mirror and the crenellated view
fused in that instant into a valediction
as if all the petals that ever were had been

blown past suddenly their aprils
into the irretrievable.

not even the legend was ours in the end
in the dedicated schoolroom
from such a delicate web unmoored

you were
though we cried to see

your starlike resolution fade
scattered dewlike on the lawns
of all the ages

and the vigils of dawns unnumbered

or in the antique books
then, vanishing away;we cannot look,
the pages melting like snows

mary angela douglas 26 may 2017 rev. 6 june 2017