to Stephen Vincent Benet, to Vachel Lindsay
I thought the dreamers of things had come
that the silt of lies had shifted otherwise
the great river had moved on
with ita showboats, its inimitable wrongs
that cadres of angels stalked the banks
that Progress had won.
fools gold so much of it seems now
farm houses blown apart and brothers and the heart
the splintering call to arms
the misery of industry.
the endless quarrels at the end of ropes
the newspaper quandries in the backstreet rooms.
the ghosts. the ghosts.
cool tombs said Sandburg, in the cool, cool tombs.
and still the supplications to Kingdom come.
starry, the folktales I have folded in my heart
American songs oh sprig of lilac mine!
the legend of a blue raspberry colored ox
the Lincoln Portraits the abyss of slave laments
laddered up to Praise!
the garnet wounded ear of God.
little sod houses set before the storms
the silk of prairie grasses in the winds
my lap heaped with buttercups the music
of To A Wild Rose scrolling.the blowing snows heaped up
before the wild eyed foaming cattle fenced
sad impearlments of the Indian names for moons
crooned over with, and soon..
I wait. and count the till.
I will that these things live.
and won't pretend all beauty has gone from
appled Appalachia, Ozarks greening,
the Great West still beckoning in pure mirage.
the robins in the chinaberry trees, the pines- of OZ-
mama cornbread calling us from the back screen door.
still. between the robin's egg blue
the blue jay feather and the milky quartz I knew
I know there is real gold in you.
America of the sweet grasses
of the wagons moving on.
the supplicant willows by the creek beds.
the elegiac trains.
I believe in you.your hallowedness.
I still believe in you.
mary angela douglas 23 july 2018
