What Is Impossible To Say In Words

(for Dmitri Shoshtakovich)


this is daylight then

when gold shines through the fissures;


this is the violet tide and unreturning now;

a quake of diamonds concluding

who knows how

and where you are

the dark snows little stars

and hemispheres hardly breathe;

amber beading on the sunken lawns.

what eve is this that shakes the garnet core

you cannot even form the words, your fist.

there is no birdsong left in this, but shards;

caesura.

there is a pause between worlds.

a diminshment, in music.

fountains shut off.

angels turn from the scene,

the weeping spires.

mary angela douglas 6 july 2019