When All Their Suns Have Set

to all poets writing (or who wrote) in the margins of their Age

fade, tales of lesser renown
you marginal troubadours brief authors of:
lost tales of Arthur

all without a sound
frieze frozen as in fairy tales
when the spells are cast,

the spells that last
and the fights are fixed
mutter the scholars to themselves.

they will not sound the lake
to see if there was some mistake
when you are gone

who know where the bodies
as they say, are buried with their songs;
those of a more acute ambition

muting the competition
but ah, the soul
the soul was ferried elsewhere.

so we have lost time without mind
the legends that more brightly shine
as Petrarch cried

some works for Heaven are made.
so they throw shade on them on earth.
I sigh

and Herod like, at their birth
stand grim watch.
only in Heaven

will their songs be found,
the overthrown,
the excised from the lists

true monarchs of words and not the pretenders
to the throne
and the muted strings resound

new made of gold
outdistancing the day and the fretted stars
by far, when all their suns have set.

mary angela douglas 10 december 2017

Note on the poem: the word lists in used in the sense of a jousting term as in: Lists - The 'lists' were barriers which defined the battlefield in a tournament