stepping onto the terrace where the night flowers bloom
and in a younger mood, remember how the evening breezes then
seemed a composite music only you could hear.
then the ear was pearl and delicately tuned to the greening world
and you read St. Francis, canticles, the hymns to the Sun.
how far away it seems the lapping at that shore.
a farther distance than could ever be traveled again
even with the old maps laid straight before you.
and the routes marked 'here'.and the exits, 'when'
hold onto it somehow, in the fleeting, the sweet recalled
the mirage of how the stars appeared to you all
flaring and shooting off wistful sparks and clear:
into the deeper, labyrinthine fears where God's still presence
still IS. and the fizz of memory is glad.
we will pick the rose colours from out of the sky
and fold them within and cease from tears.
the heart is lined with them
the heart is lined with them!
even after long years.
mary angela douglas 9 october 2020
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