SONG FOR THE LAST INTERVIEW (VERSION OF JUNE 10 2019)

'it will flame out like shining from shook foil'

-Gerard Manley Hopkins

(for Dr. Robert Joseph Connelly, UIW, San Antonio, in memoriam)

this is for the Word made whole
for the poetry-riven skies
for the strength to recognize a lie

for the breakable language
unbroken still
by the bent word

built for profit,
not for truth.

this is my sigh in the flowering
air for the glass blown disappearing act of
stars in the May apple regions

appearing,
disarming, chiming in the winds
that only angels bring

the pause (finally, in excoriating speech,
-your very own-)
where you collect yourself
if not your things

from one last day at work
or home
picking your report card up

in June from the ghost school;
for the ghosts of
cornbread heirlooms

dripping with the honeycomb;
for afternoons of strawberries
and cream -

for the Holy Ghost dressed in pale green
for the whole world seen
through stereoscopic Disney,

Christmas stenciled windows;
the least view of small
pink flowers bordering the sidewalk

goodbye...this is for God
who hears and sees the
honey tinged questions'
finding fault

so that permanent records
continue to reflect
your waywardness in

never having the exact
amount of change
this is for the second you feel

you have to leave with no reprieve
the childhood home, the iced teas
so much earlier than you dreamed

with only three dresses packed
in a
walnut, the Lord's prayer on a dime:

fixing the hall clock in your memory
the jelly glasses
and the willow-ware, the brightness of pennies

over other denominations...the sherbets, lime
the even times;
repairing your chiffon shadow

on the way with your personal sewing kit

to honor those who raised you
and read you fairy tales
as though from great distances.

this is for
no safe-houses on the horizon
least of all the yellow brick one

across the street
where children climb trees heedlessly
and eat the whole summer

an entire orchard of homemade
peach ice cream...
this is for the deep-starred journey

undertaken
for the fools' errands-
for the straw that will never

everland turn into gold
no matter how the Rumplestiltskins scold

listen to me:
questionable friends
make the journey a million times

harder and give you the wrong
directions to the castle so
that you never find

the singing bird.
this is for trudging on alone
for crossing the borders on your own

not looking back even when
the person who packed to come with you
changes their mind at sunrise

then runs to tell on you
like we were back in school

this is for living
like the silence on the moon
and soon and soon

far from the living room

you will withdraw from a tiny shell
at the exact right moment in the interview, a
shining like shook foil shaken-

three dresses of compressible splendor
kept against the rain and
wrapped in violet tissue:

the one of vivid stars
the one of ornate flame
the one of cloudless cloudless blue

and, as if on cue, the opal angels move-
scattering the inquisitors;
settling old accounts

in scripts of gold
with not one scintilla of
asking anyone for permission.

for you were watched over
even while crocodiles wept
my child my child at

every nightmare's exit

by the Word unbroken:
by music heard in the wake of angels,
by undetainable Light...

mary angela douglas revision of june 10, 2019