There's An Angel For Going Out (First Draft)

for Harold Bloom and Jeanne Gould Bloom
whom I know only from a kind distance.

there's an angel for going out
when candle flame wavers
and one for coming in

in a shifting of scarlet leaves
and one that puts violet creases
in the wind: then it is Spring

and the weights are lifted
the ones balancing grief with
joy. we don't often speak

of the angels of the end,
of the seesaw motions of the spheres
of endings in gold leaf.

I want to think as if
before I disappear

in a blind snowstorm of thinking
through these too humid summers, years
favoring the angel of the cooling winds

of tears

the angel of returns, returning again
and the angels of light, the cherishing of
the cherries on the boughs

and snowy quiet.

we have lost certain angels, with roses bedight
gathering the children on rickety bridges

slipping out of our pockets at noon, at night
the knights of pathos littering all the trails
to the Holy Grail

in city deserts and in the cypress gloom

of old paintings. there was our refuge we presumed
or in a Proustian bar of exquisite music tuned
to the inner pianos.

here is the melody and the lands you lived in then

the gardenias in the green glass vase
when you were at home
the angel of stars and staircases descending

into semi mysterious realms, the banishing one

of disenchantments, disabused;
rainbowed, the Angel near the throne
who suddenly called you by an opal name

one crystal bell resounding
among all the others.
and on the waves,

painted on the silk screen of skies

the angel of the mariners
and of the soldiers of Time.

mary angela douglas 17 may 2018;17 july 2018