I wonder if the angels sit around reading poetry
on their days off
the poetry that no one reads on earth
that no one read.
piling up remaindered in the odd basement, pastorale shed, unheralded.or in the attics, next to the Morris Chair.
of course they don't have days in Heaven
it's all just one golden glare
off the burnished streets
of Everywhere
you might miss moonrise.
perhaps they wait at the Gate
for poems about the moon.
with Yeats, for his purple noons.
it's hard to picture angels sitting.
really, I can't do it.
what about the wings?
maybe a folding chair.
or do the wings fold down.
haha. wing back chairs...
perhaps they read while flying
their attendant breezes turning a page
or do they lose their place that way.
I'd like to know from age to age
and if we're good
will we at least be understood there
for what we meant to say when we had words.
I picture the secret poems in clouds,
that rain publishes on the pavement
so that children splash through rainbows
mirrored. are we the mirrorng ones
after we've gone? catching
what travels There in sound,
in opal waves, from the lost and founds
of half remembered pink afternoons
from Eden's formal gardens, guarded.
from the lisp of children lost in their parades
their lilied dreams
brimming with rhyme schemes.
twirling in their velvet shoes
with the pom-poms.
mary angela douglas 20 july 2018
on their days off
the poetry that no one reads on earth
that no one read.
piling up remaindered in the odd basement, pastorale shed, unheralded.or in the attics, next to the Morris Chair.
of course they don't have days in Heaven
it's all just one golden glare
off the burnished streets
of Everywhere
you might miss moonrise.
perhaps they wait at the Gate
for poems about the moon.
with Yeats, for his purple noons.
it's hard to picture angels sitting.
really, I can't do it.
what about the wings?
maybe a folding chair.
or do the wings fold down.
haha. wing back chairs...
perhaps they read while flying
their attendant breezes turning a page
or do they lose their place that way.
I'd like to know from age to age
and if we're good
will we at least be understood there
for what we meant to say when we had words.
I picture the secret poems in clouds,
that rain publishes on the pavement
so that children splash through rainbows
mirrored. are we the mirrorng ones
after we've gone? catching
what travels There in sound,
in opal waves, from the lost and founds
of half remembered pink afternoons
from Eden's formal gardens, guarded.
from the lisp of children lost in their parades
their lilied dreams
brimming with rhyme schemes.
twirling in their velvet shoes
with the pom-poms.
mary angela douglas 20 july 2018
