now when I write you
you answer in templates; that place I felt was full of saints
if you answer at all on your facebook wall
is it because I am no longer a prospective student
seeking a catalogue to catalogue all the reasons why
I should be in love with your granite architecture forever
the way the little tulip tree blossoms near the mezzanine
where I looked out as it was
laden with sudden snow a stinging glow on my face
because my window is raised
and that was Spring; the Spring when I learned everything
when every blossom fall was fragrant with the whole acute universe
and I wrote green verse in green ink
or in the winter halls I cherished
the way snows sweep past the lamplight in early December
seen from a dorm window at night and lit up as with angels.
those things make me weep when I recall them
or how I listened tenderly to Mendelssohn's violin concerto
as performed by a friend so that everything around me
suddenly rose up in a pale green and fervent whispering
or read Rilke till dawn in the translations of M. Herter Norton.
I lived there then. and every inch of ground and space
was blossoming with the possibilities of learning something
revitalized as if from a Golden Age
something rarefied even holy; implicit, imprint in amber
filtering Dante's several suns or
at any moment, coming around the corner to see
Quixote in genteel poverty or Picasso's poster on a wall
beside a professor's office posted with his hours;
me in my dress of flowers contemplating
Dulcinea near the tower bell in off hours
and all the Remembrances Of Things Past
there remain to tell but to whom.
What hell is this that now when I speak
or whatever I ask
there is no one who remembers who has empathy
for the past that was our Present then
or the poem about the falconer in mind.
as they breathe clockwork in the sweep of sweeping Time:
the Image, Brand up off the floor
where freaks like me have perhaps littered it
with overemotional reminiscence St. Louis at my crossroads:
that Silver Arch through which I had come thinking of
Tennyson's Ulysses, Memoriam before I had begun just as
Tennyson did
what does it matter to you now, sorting through forms
you think of me as a ghost if you think at all
someone to be sorted as the English say
so you can get on with your administrative day.
who are you; were you once an invading army
buildings are not enough to preserve what there was then
a something intangible sparkling in the air
an irrefutable threshold lustre of bronze bright autumn
anywhere my septembers
the curious turning of an intricate mind twining
the rubied thread through the labyrinth
"Everybody Is A Star: on the jukebox
Cherry Danish from the machine
on Saturdays...Who Knows Where The Time Goes
you with your new crops now.
your technological know how
your alumni dollars. anyhow
crop this from the picture if you can.
in april or may remembering a poem I wrote one day
under a tree of great and white azalea brightening
my ghost will come to stay resolved in her ancient quest
fluttering the pages of all the books in the library.
and by infinite starlight. blessed.
mary angela douglas 4 may 2020;rev. 6 june 2020
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