The Things You Read In Your Sleep

the things you read in your sleep:
the passing of clouds
the drifting away of kingdoms,

leaves, from the silvered bough
infinity inscribed
on a mercury dime

you spent on one summer day
the snow hours and the glistening
Christmas spray, corsage

of the candlelit wonders

May budding into flowering
in a bridal way and petal strewn,
inevitable Junes

enshrined with pearl

and all the time you thought you had
when you were a girl,
the sudden reasons to be glad

the ruby throated singing

of before
the opening of
an amethyst door in a mist.

and disappearing, all of this,

the birthday of the sun.
the shutting of the earth
for what is done.

mary angela douglas 5 august 2017