Inquisitions

for keeping a small star in a thimble
perhaps I was scolded on a cloudless day
or given a final warning

resigned to going without my pay.
for keeping time with a riddle
for wearing my clothes the other way

for singing in all the corners
and putting my artwork on display.
for leaving the back door open

so me and the star could get away
eluding the  court astronomers'
taking the train to the Milky Way.

mary angela douglas 2 september 2020

NOTE ON THE POEM:

This poem came to me thinking of all the little things a person can be scolded for here and there over a lifetime by whoever feels like it at the time and then for some reason I started thinking about Galileo and what he went through with the Inquisition for saying what he saw in the Heavens exactly as he saw it. It would be fun to have a pet star;just a tiny one. Unless its mother missed it. St/. Exupery who wrote the enchanting book The Little Prince would probably know how to do that. And what it would be necessary to remember or to forget in order for that to happen.


I might have heard somewhere there was a version of this poem that occurred in an alternate universe and started out : FOR KEEPING A PENGUIN IN THE CLOSET but that could not have been me because my closets are smaller than the thimble.