LEARNING
gold flakes off the sun
or stardust streams from the once upons
and suddenly you stand inside the crystal.
not outside, looking at the diagram again, uncomprehending.
or feel on your face the winds of Athens,
Shakespeare rising
and you, the Dialogues, you are the plays, each one
as though you spoke each word in your sleep originally.
or it's bright midsommer on a jam coloured day
when you feel called inside the treasure heaped caves
eluding chores
and wander in...
the dream within the dream and Calderon...
oh life, the fleeting the beautiful has come and gone
and now returned, you hear the light leaves murmur
in their song that you like Shelley are the King of clouds.
or Queen of the May or the Saint envisioning the
curative fountains, directed to find them
on some Saturday...
what century am I today you feel like Alice
still in the same blue dress wondering at her desk that
then the strawberries gleamed too
in Junes and children sat in school
reciting golden numbers feeling metrics
like the drone of bees outside the open windows
sanguine amid the flowers
till called to attention. in their new school shoes
from such reveries...on the eve of undeclared war
or simple as cream, the walking out the doors
to waiting trains;
the winter seeds sown.
let us revisit these scenes
all the way down to their sunless seas
the Christmas ghost pleads (or Coleridge, who knows)
and you go with them through the clouded dells
to all that you could never spell
or with the Blessed Damozel
to forgotten wishing wells, or come upon shelves unshelved of
untranslated biographies
in fragments, seraphs in tears
for all the unrecorded years...
one star upon a stone
that sang out:"Christ!" along a tolling road
and you elucidating, on your way, your own
while some take orders for a seamless garment
the cost of dreams the cost of dreams the cost of dreams
mary angela douglas 16 march 2019...
gold flakes off the sun
or stardust streams from the once upons
and suddenly you stand inside the crystal.
not outside, looking at the diagram again, uncomprehending.
or feel on your face the winds of Athens,
Shakespeare rising
and you, the Dialogues, you are the plays, each one
as though you spoke each word in your sleep originally.
or it's bright midsommer on a jam coloured day
when you feel called inside the treasure heaped caves
eluding chores
and wander in...
the dream within the dream and Calderon...
oh life, the fleeting the beautiful has come and gone
and now returned, you hear the light leaves murmur
in their song that you like Shelley are the King of clouds.
or Queen of the May or the Saint envisioning the
curative fountains, directed to find them
on some Saturday...
what century am I today you feel like Alice
still in the same blue dress wondering at her desk that
then the strawberries gleamed too
in Junes and children sat in school
reciting golden numbers feeling metrics
like the drone of bees outside the open windows
sanguine amid the flowers
till called to attention. in their new school shoes
from such reveries...on the eve of undeclared war
or simple as cream, the walking out the doors
to waiting trains;
the winter seeds sown.
let us revisit these scenes
all the way down to their sunless seas
the Christmas ghost pleads (or Coleridge, who knows)
and you go with them through the clouded dells
to all that you could never spell
or with the Blessed Damozel
to forgotten wishing wells, or come upon shelves unshelved of
untranslated biographies
in fragments, seraphs in tears
for all the unrecorded years...
one star upon a stone
that sang out:"Christ!" along a tolling road
and you elucidating, on your way, your own
while some take orders for a seamless garment
the cost of dreams the cost of dreams the cost of dreams
mary angela douglas 16 march 2019...
