After The Russian

black snow descended in Malevich square
that was when I turned the corner
and then another, edged in the raveling of lace

it's late my mother it's unearthly
we ate pears at Christmas in the matchstick flare
I dreamed up in a dream when we were almost

beyond compare; compere,
folkloric embroidered with the memory of snow
soon the harvests won't come

drum circles will emerge
but all I heard
was nothing compared

with Shoshtakovich.
violins weeping the black snows.
it's the absence of light

that will not count as a country in Heaven
no matter how hard they try
to stop the swallows

when they fly with a single crumbling edict
to carry poetry into a furnace
and the furnace never dies

and black snow is descending
violas at  the end, the last jette
why pretend otherwise

you could really forget

why look at spires through a mist
and imagine this as 
a fairy tale

milk white; prescient with opals
I was in an orchard of whys
and no one could fell me.

mary angela douglas 7 april 2019