Saturday, January 27, 2018

Song For The Last Interview (Final Version)

'it will flame out like shining from shook foil'
-Gerard Manley Hopkins

(for Dr. Robert Joseph Connelly, UIW, San Antonio, in memoriam)

this is for the Word made whole
for the poetry-riven skies
for the strength to recognize a lie


for the breakable language
unbroken still
by the bent word


built for profit,
not for truth.


this is my sigh in the flowering
air for the glass blown disappearing act of
stars in the May apple regions


appearing,
disarming, chiming in the winds
that only angels bring


the pause (finally, in excoriating speech,
-your very own-)
where you collect yourself
if not your things


from one last day at work
or home
picking your report card up


in June from the ghost school;
for the ghosts of
cornbread heirlooms


dripping with the honeycomb;
for afternoons of strawberries
and cream -


for the Holy Ghost dressed in pale green
for the whole world seen
through stereoscopic Disney,


Christmas stenciled windows;
the least view of small
pink flowers bordering the sidewalk


goodbye...this is for God

who hears and sees the
honey tinged questions'
finding fault


so that permanent records
continue to reflect
your waywardness in


never having the exact
amount of change
this is for the second you feel


you have to leave with no reprieve
the loved home, the iced teas
so much earlier than you dreamed


with only three dresses packed
in a
walnut, the Lord's prayer on a dime:


fixing the hall clock in your memory
the jelly glasses
and the willow-ware, the brightness of pennies


over other denominations...the sherbets, lime
the eventimes;
repairing your chiffon shadow


on the way with your personal sewing kit

to honor those who raised you
and read you fairy tales
as though from great distances.


this is for
no safe-houses on the horizon
least of all the yellow brick one


across the street
where children climb trees
and eat the whole summer


an entire orchard of homemade
peach ice cream...
this is for the deep-starred journey


undertaken
for the fools' errands-
for the straw that will never
everland turn into gold
no matter how the Rumplestiltskins scold


listen to me:
questionable friends
make the journey a million times


harder and give you the wrong
directions to the castle so
that you never find


the singing bird.
this is for trudging on alone
for crossing the borders on your own


not looking back even when
the person who meant to come with you
changes their mind at sunrise


then runs to tell on you.
like we were back in school

this is for living
like the silence on the moon
and soon and soon


far from the living room

you will withdraw from a tiny shell
at the exact right moment in the interview, a
shining like shook foil shaken-


three dresses of compressible splendor
kept against the rain and
wrapped in violet tissue:


the one of vivid stars
the one of ornate flame
the one of cloudless cloudless blue


and, as if on cue, the opal angels move-
scattering the inquisitors;
settling old accounts


in scripts of gold
with not one scintilla of
asking anyone for permission.


for you were watched over
even while crocodiles wept
my child my child at


every nightmare's exit

by the Word unbroken:
by music heard in the wake of angels,
by undetainable Light...


mary angela douglas 30 june 2009 rev. 7 december 2016;27 january 2018;3 june 2019