To Christ Near Easter Under A Moon Of Rose

under a soft pink moon drifting in clouds
I tried to speak to you the way I would have then
I heard the lilies sob near the trellis

and I was a ladder lying on the ground.
I was a ladder of sound and nothing else
of soundless sound as if the scene were muted

the pink moon swirled in mists in its clouded rose
I could have composed dirges except that my heart
had too many snows whirling inside of it

and words forsook me. I couldnt remember the alphabets
we spent all summer embroidering
or the bluebird color of thread the sobbing lilies

when you were dead and when you rose oh Christ
no one knows but you how it felt to pick the ladder from the ground
with how slow steps thou climbst Phillip Sidney said about the moon
and I felt all afternoon something different was going
to happen that would shift the world and lift me from the ground
ragged with sound and weeping in my sleep prescient 

knowing you would ascend though we had forgotten
you were ever our friend
though we didnt remember you at all
though we had forgotten
we ever knew you at all.

mary angela douglas 8 april 2020