Star

does He sometimes lose a star?
He made, he makes so many
and stop the cogs and go to find it

do the angels hear him calling "Star,
where are you?" all over the heavenly
neighborhoods.

And then does he see
the small child in the grass
picking up something shiny

does he smile
knowing it's safe for a little while,
His star.

So many things we lose each day.
Does he count all the petals?
the clouds when they drift away, the  rains?

the leaves of trees

each wavelet on the sea
the small ducks on the pond,
bobbing under

the rippling of summer thunder
I wish he could lose
all sense of what was lost

and we do the same.
that some sparkling. maybe unlikely

day all lost things would come home.
how lovely that would be
the child in the yard saying

here's your star.
I kept it for you.
all this is true

and really happened.


mary angela douglas 28 february 2019

America. To Love Again

I have felt your cactus edge
as my forefathers did
oh wilderness we did not tame within

when to our shame we left for ourselves
the honeyed shade
while those we called our slaves

bore for three hundred years
the heat of the sun.
when will the wilderness leave us

who could not leave for them
what God himself endowed.
how can we find the way out Christ

who claimed liberty only for ourselves.
it was not ours to give what God had given
to all men

no magnanimity why pretend
even at Lincoln's dearest hand
who has the power to grant what

God already did.
only say the burglars gave back
the liberty they stole bur grudgingly.

it grows old, the territories expand
and sorrow grows because we do not own
what we did.

only at the Cross may we kneel down
and pray God will restore to the suffering men of yore
that we condemned and to their cherished children without end

all that we locusts stole
and through our tears
cry mercy, mercy upon us Lord

who caused such misery
for those you loved
and give us grace

to love again.

mary angela douglas 28 february 2019

So This Is

so this is Wonderland she said
to clear the netting in her head
where rose gardens painted red

revert to white when it rains
or something else is gained
I can't remember what

by looking at the clock

I'll start again
and learn my lessons clear
as mirror writing

with a minimum of inciting

sending telegrams instead
of buttering my bread
but who's to send and where

it's like a dream dead latitude
when everything you knew
suddenly won't apply

apply yourself they scream
in every corner of the dream
but nothing works here as before

or is it after
interrupted by their laughter

soonest said never mended in my head
but spirographs of snow will decorate the cold
winter in no retreat

no one there to meet you
at the train
that runs on past you into

an inverse universe
expecting the worst of fractions
a lunch of liverwurst

a pat on my fuddled head
I wanted raspberries instead
and lemon cake

oh when will I awake

this must be my mistake
it always is, they say
and I've learned now

I don't know how
it's easier when
you don't pretend

you solved the riddle without end
so just comply
when they ask why

say nothing else and be well bred.
they say that works
when you're lost on earth.

or underground
or underground

mary angela douglas 28 february 2019

What We Thought Then

writing ourselves into the story
how could we know by lamplight then
that we would disappear

in the greening of our years
or that it would seem like that
at the tip of a ghostly hat, the first one

that we were learning to disappear
the best magic trick of all
in the flowering of our tears

or to carry on

in the disappearing of the song
choosing what was right
not what was wrong

the best versions ever
in learning to say never never
will we live any other way

than when we came, we thought,
to stay.

mary angela douglas 27 february 2019

Shall We Anchor Ourselves In Clouds

shall we anchor ourselves in clouds, the pink, no, the blue
the violet hue where both colors intersect, of the ever changing skies.we always thought we would, when colouring on our own.

and now I think so too; why wouldnt I;
I never turned the page when told,
or it was implied, let's all prepare

for the real world now.
the real world.
if ever there was a laughable phrase

that's the one.
which world, whose exactly.
what is real about it

when the stage sets keep changing
depending on who's in charge
and various characters you meet

still dressed in your Alice blue
in your own yard

all seem to want to rearrange you.
so softly you close the door
on your own particular cloud

I'm going to remain myself,
that's the plan
you say, but not aloud.

and so.
you do.

mary angela douglas 24 february 2019

Perfections Of The Evening

perfections of the evening and the silver lost silver
falling through the trees
I think this the evening breeze

as filtered through the harmonies of Debussy
it is a beautiful evening sings the music
quietly

the beautiful evening flowers with
the night flowers on the breeze
the evening lifts its wings

over the perpetual fading of blue
into deeper blue
and finally it is dark

and yet the heart in daylight listens
to the silver in the music rising and falling
to the interlude, the prelude

or the finishing on a dream
where it shines and where it gleams
and cannot be forgotten

though time abandons it
and lifetimes stream beyond it
in a furtive farewell.

where we have launched our goodbyes.

mary angela douglas 21 february 2019

People Like Me

people like me
wish for the moon and stars.
he said, people like you

really can't get that far
I said how do you know
what's in a human soul

did God tell you so
I'd really like to know
he said you are so strange

how will you ever learn
the things that you need
to tell that the light has turned

I said you'd be surprised
those who are truly wise
are those who are kind

not those who thank that their mind
is greater than great
and gives them the right

to berate and berate 
people like me
people like me

people like me.

mary angela douglas 20 february 2019

The Poem Bird Nested In The Rafters Of Dream

the poem bird nested in the rafters of Dream
and fluttered softly its starry wings
and puzzled lightly as night drew on

above the land that had no Song
that had no song.

it carried jewels within its beak
and dropped them into the dreamlesss sleep
of those who favored prose instead

and read the news as if they were dead
and read the news.

but lately the clouds have lifted the tune
and something musical filled the room
for a little while we almost resumed

in golden letters or crystal shoon
the dance we lived by when we were new
when we were new.

oh poem bird banished
i don't know why
we learned to prefer

a starless sky
I wish I wish before I die
you'll sing in the violet skies returned

and we will forget the lies we learned
the lies we learned.

mary angela douglas 17 february 2019

We Seek In Tears The Passage Of Our Years

we seek in tears the passage of our years
recalling when the journey was young
and we set out almost without knowing we had

incapable of thinking...
how the decades flew, would flow would
stop and start would seem at an end

and then, a rose bloom hour, at a new crossroads.
how golden was the time when we were
floating as clouds above the landscapes,

with every tremulous step in the Easter grass
full of dreams, as hazy as sunlight beams
almost with no past like fresh linen snow

and full of delight, you know, so apple bright
at every new thing learned.
how is it possible we murmur now

in the same voice as our elders
we couldn't understand back then
that time has seemed a lifetime contracted

in one minute. a pure thimble's worth.
now we are in it too
looking back on all that we passed through

wondering why it is
when we are young
and just so cherry velvet spun and spinning

we lack even though there are so many witnesses
to the fact that tell us so
the awareness that we are on some track

here on earth that will run out for us at last
when we clasp the winnowing hand of God...
over that shining threshold, as the others have

for one final graduation day, sans the corsage.
each must find only in their own time
on a certain day in their own way

that finally it is, it has become
too late to go back through those gates
and start again so we pretend

there's more time than we think
and maybe there is,
while singing over the dishes bubbling

in the sink

though we are on the brink

with every leaf that falls
with every wind that sighs
and then is stilled

whether we will it so
or not.

mary angela douglas 16 february 2019/

I Dreamed I Was The Precision Of Stars

I dreamed I was the precision of stars
when they fold inward
dreaming it is their night

in the middle of the day
and I dreamed that light had
drowned the earth

and there was nothing left to say
except what angels murmured each to each
and this was the music bequeathed to us

at the end
that we might mend ourselves
before God

and shine in a lesser way
but still, be still
in a way He understood.

mary angela douglas 15 february 2019

When Will We Melt Away

who lived to write the history of roses
the way the paper dolls looked when they were new
complete, with outfits for any occasion

accessories too,though paper tab folded
only on one side.

you are little they said when they addressed our souls
in the school hallways where the lockers froze
as if we counted for nothing

and were somebody's kites

on a faraway string.
and they let go.
suddenly we saw

it was Spring
in more than one place
on the globe

and we were free
to come go
like snows

like the match girl in and out of dreams

when will we melt away
we wondered and wondered.
but God, said, chiming,

Never.

mary angela douglas 12 february 2019

We Are So Rooted Here

we are so rooted here, sending our shoots into the ground
as though we were trees
how can we leave 

how can we believe we will be leaving
here.
where we have barely learned 

the colours of the skies
before we have dried the tears of the sun.
still, we go on

still we number Christmases, the least birds

song, the fractures in 
the heart within the heart that endlessly nesting
we may still be bearing up

bearing our load of gold and neglect

 a certain transition in dreams;
that means more than it seems
the curve of the swan reflected

in the vanishing stream

mary angela douglas 10 february 2019

Spelling

we learned letters so that we could spell
and loved the spelling bees
thinking we were the flowers spelling

honey, there in the classroom sunlight
for a little while that seemed eternity
breathing the colours of words, the vowels

the constantly friendly consonants
who loved us amid the chalkdust

the gold starred feeling too
of spelling the list, all the way through
and no mistakes

and matching the cake word to its picture
in a kid dictionary what pink what custardly content
candle by candle lent in state textbooks, owned before

until you can see it, say it, write it perfectly.
that came later, in workbooks; how huge our pencils were
so that they could be firmly grasped

in writing laboriously on pale blue
highways of lines that made me think
every time of summer lessons with

Grandmother, early music theory
the only kind I could understand
how forming the treble clef especially

seemed such a victory
and singing the alphabet song
and spooning alphabet soup

seemed mystically, naturally linked.
later I thought so long learning of Helen Keller
from a school fair paperback of her life

spelling water, and feeling the water run blindly
over her hands
and I thought the water of language

the language of water
and understood alone in the wood of my thoughts then
by the honeysuckle 

what all spelling was for.

mary angela douglas 9 february 2019

Straight Whistle Clean Through The Valentine Heart Of God

straight whistle clean through the valentine heart of God

how could we not launch our tiny arrows

send him scrawled messages in a bottle

to wash up on Heaven's shore

cork it open read it my baby heart cried

making poems out of all his rosebuds

star showers in the backyard

caught by my grandfather in a rusty pail

the rust of heaven we cried

if only he had not died, my Grandfather,
God on the cover of Time

and we had stayed walking by his side

or here's our candy sampler box

with the biggest ribbon yet, pink silk

and giant cardboard heart

rolled up to the Pearly...

still it's not enough

and maybe we risk being even a little tacky

(my Grandmother's bane, that word)

and ricky racky with our handmade goods

but Lord, dear Lord,

we wish we could

could really be

your valentine

and send you the gluiest reddest truest heart

the best we have

construction paper red

well, it's a start.

p.s. plus sweet tarts, with little pastel messages, all You can eat.

Who needs a treat more than You do.

I Wish I Could

one of the keys I have is to a box of lead
she said don't open it instead of the one
I tell you to, please

but we  were at our ease, my sister and I
under a strawberry sky
and couldn't remember directions well

how will this story come out we wondered
taking our time because it was ours again
oh I don't know, she could have been nicer

the fairy in charge of the keys
why always make everything so complicated.
so we left it at that

and swung on the swings
and thought about then so many things
the early Spring grass staining our school shoes

I can't remember at all now
though I wish I could.

mary angela douglas 8 february 2019

Returning

there are landscapes in the countries of the soul
drear hinges in the long ago you come upon
thinking you have made the wrong

turn in the fairy tale, have strayed have strayed have strayed
or fallen sideways down a puzzle piece staircase
your shadow shortening before

the stern gaze of fixed angels and
facing the sundial on your own.
your shoelaces untied.

and you make your way in a jagged countryside with night
coming on, cinder block houses the sheer lack of consolation
the very constellations not the same

who is reigning here, my soul...

and the wind is singeing where the sunset meets the treeline
yet sunset doesn't come.
in the distance who is beating a strange drum

is quelling the heartbeat of the Sun

and the leaves fleeing an undelineated disaster.
you would walk faster but to where.

I found such an afternoon though I don't know how
I slipped through

and wandered there awhile dumbfounded keyless
mapless all of that compass pinpointing of a
a dreariness built to last

The weather vanes shirring, the quiring of birds;
prevailing, the out of kilter as if Time itself had sprung a spring
and we couldn't go back to the living streams.

all slept. all could not dream.
but on awaking it occurred to me
there must be other landscapes

as there is ever, always
an alternate side to sided things

bluebell bluebird brightening
profuse with flowers and if we are quiet
and quiet for hours

thinking only of jeweled things
and mind our manners before God
the sap of the stars

the tent poles firmly planted in the verdant

almost without noticing the change
and spreading the honey on our toast
we will find suddenly those slopes

childhood meadows and the blue violet pond

real as real
our once upons.
our open castles with the pennants stirring
in a lilied when

all the gilded Kingdoms again
the tournaments of joy, returning.

mary angela douglas 6 february 2019

The Summer Of Words

the summer of words was perfect
leafy as Eden
we admired ourselves

in crystal pools. as children do
with fresh hair ribbons,
necklaces of spools with

the many coloured threads.
behind us the mirrors of an open sky
we could not die; there were no dead.

it was pure gold, each fresh word coined
and spoken into the air we spoke in pearls
laughter rippled among the angels

and God replied in so many peach sunsets
we lost count.

turning the pages of the lexicon of Light
dreaming we thought we heard it whispered
the promise of eternal Spring.

who could stop us singing then.
who would want to.
we were like the winds.

There was no rumor of war
of strange commercials unexplained
of propaganda fresh as buttered biscuits

deadly as lead.
no idiot proclamations God is dead.
there was none of this.

no one believes me
when I say this now
through secret handshakes

covert dreams inside the gates
getting the word out somehow
the only words that we have left.

that haven't been invaded.

pray.

escape.

wait for God.


mary angela douglas 4 february 2019