She Remembers The Predominance Of Music, The Dominant Chords

could it be that we were that small

to view the ascension of angels

through our vue finders

to make of the green leaves a permanent castle

to blow soap bubbles into the sun 

were we that young

to know that we could spend our dimes

on any far flung enterprise

being taken to the school book fairs

and wander happy there for all our lives

or to the circus the popcorn dreaming matiness

or listening to Mozart in our blue room

on our little records, or Beethoven

we heard it with our ABCS

the sunken cathedral of Debussy

or when sudden storms blew up

in the garden: mysterious Music

Or Grandmother's Liszt in the piano studio

where she played like fountains weeping on

the mystical keys

with Grandfather at his ease in the brown recliner

listening listening 

Lord help me remember these, our scenes

my sister and I

our lines

all our lost valentines to You

and to our Mama

the play is long

with few intermissions

except, for the rose scent, evergreen glint 

of Song.

aamary angela douglas 28 february 2021 

The Problem As Alice Saw It Later

in her least favorite dream

it wasnt the things she had said that

bothered her

it was always the things she was asked

she knew she could solve things above ground

after all, she always did well in school,

regardless of the task

but here in the one blue dress the only one she seemed to have 

brought with her

all questions had no answers

or else, they had the wrong ones

and the Doormouse KNEW it.

so she outgrew the houses, one by one

till all tea parties were done

then only the trial remained

for which there was no clue

no matter how hard she studied

her head was filled with rue.

nothing nothing filled the teacups.

the only solution

was to wake up

mary angela douglas 27 february 2021

Since Soaring Is (Variation after the ballet Jewels by George Balanchine;riff on a letter of Wilbur Wright's)

SINCE SOARING IS (VARIATION AFTER THE BALLET JEWELS BY GEORGE BALANCHINE;RIFF ON A LETTER OF WILBUR WRIGHT'S...

to my Mother, leaning out of Heaven... (Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas)

Since soaring is merely gliding in a rising current..., I read in a letter of Wilbur Wrights

in one of his luminescent para ti, paraphrase para mi parasailing phrases and my mind drifted off

some small kite on the wind, if not glider to where I could hear the bells on the hems of the angels garments sing

the semi oceanic swell of the rose bright words of former poets drifting, drifting the finer silver edged, ruby edged lift off

since morning is merely gliding let me in on the phrase where everything is riding on one choice word I asked of them

the gyroscope, the feeling of hope, small jonquil diamonds spinning

and Christmas echoing through the dream corridors of small children early rising from their beds.

for what's ahead in the cinnamon winds, for the weather vanes of gold

since soaring is gliding merely let the words with new made wings arise, arise

in the dawn lit skies and apple blossom free

masquerading as birds or turquoise and see through mere ghosts gliding on the crest of language, still;

you know, they always will and with an emerald propinquity grant me

the casting and recasting of the sequined twine

toward the Blessed Damozel, in blue vidrian.

mary angela douglas 24 february 2021

Christmas Bulbs

I miss the Christmas bulbs back then

almost the size of tulip bulbs they were so emphatic

and the light that glowed in them well it seemed that if

you rooted them in the ground flowers in glass blown colours

would emerge and long before Spring. I miss them so.

they lined the roofs, like outlines in a Christmas colouring book

of the entire town

and when you were allowed outside at night and could see your breath

make frost in the cold you saw them and the colours ached like the cold

and you thought to your young self these are Christmas lights

this is how I will remember them. This will never change.

how could you know they would diminish over the years becoming a mere twinkling

that small white lights barely distinguishable from no light at all would predominate

and be thought elegant; but you thought like Dorothy, this is not home.

but I never agreed to that. I want the bulbs, the orange, the violet, the mint green, unmistakable in Glory

the blazing red the child deep blue, lemon yellow almost like candies in a way on the tree or fruits of the sun and loads of icicles reflecting all

the colours making it all the more resplendent

and everywhere let them return christening all the roofs with a crystalline Christmas celerity, clarity

maybe then we can sing Christmas merrier and really mean we ourselves are the glass bells we are ringing it in we are that beyond joy

and put on the old records where all the choruses sounded for the world

like sheer angels and you knew that Heaven was on earth

it had to be

from the day He was born. because it was happening all over again

and this is why there was so much radiance.

mary angela douglas 23 february 2021

Analise

in paintings she would be the one whose hand was trailing in the water like a lily

for whom the clouds turned pink the whole year she was five

who breathed in music and exhaled ivory mists to stay alive

the snow child. adopted by the old couple in some remote village

afraid of Spring flowers because they meant goodbye.

who gathered white violets and sighed.in tiny rosebuds.

analise, perhaps they called her. analise.

with a cream coloured petticoat 

a pelisse of pale blue stars

I thought of her that way having read the story

so many times

I thought I had received it in a dream.

mary angela douglas 23 february 2021

Portmanteau

it's started you think or maybe not

this shifting;this sifting of everything upwards

like Van Gogh's stars

swirling above the lemon cafe at dusk

you must to get

the bird's eye view of the land

and then you feel it's who I am

you are the rains and the lilies of the field;

sweeping in again,

you are music

but not as you used to be, transposed

is it the eclipse of the rose or the wave this time

the gold melting of fissures into rhymes

the crystal on its own in the spectacular caves

the day the calender had no mystical inkling of

when the Christmas star was in the skies

about to arise. and with the Dove

pack the green portmanteau

the one that holds everything

your heart will ever know

the landscapes you believed beloved

the bread and butter on the side;

when everything turned against you as a bride

following the trail you discovered in childhood

trodding in spring's blue silk

the path in the secret woods bordered with violets

where the flowers sparkled

pretending they were snow.

to let you know: this is you now

with a long way to go. isn't it wonderful.

mary angela douglas 22 february 2021

The Rose And the Laurel Too

(*On hearing an old recording by the great actor Christopher Plummer, only a few

days after his death...)

"Take the rose and the laurel too;you take it all"

he spoke the words of Shakespeare or was it Rostand as if he had invented them all

on the air just then in the old recording I listened to and then

his voice faded to below a cipher of sound beckoning beauty elsewhere  I could have sworn it

was his ghost there murmuring before it could even have been possible to trace

the failing register of it on the winter wind

take the living air I think he may have felt when it was real

reduce the quiver to naught the target to less than naught

let the heart keep silence as though it were the center of silver Space

though time erase the words these words upon my breath

some may remember the longing in them clarified, and wrought almost of stars

whatever I knew of love or rage

long after their effect was laid to rest upon the echoing stage.

mary angela douglas 22 february 2021

Ghost Stars In The Heavens

(to Galileo Galelei)

what kind of lens will it take to find them

the ghost stars in the Heavens

those who have passed away in the tinfoil candy wrapper day

or never quite became conglomerated enough

to shine

let us make stars the Lord God said but he had so much

tinsel left over, luminescent gift wrap

it never got all used up and then there were the moments

when he got distracted crafting flowers

Imagine what it took to form one rose, the prototype

or maybe these are those who were almost born

the faintest flickers and there they are in wisps of gleaming

and though you

try at a higher resolution to define them as they are

you won't be able to do it

the ghost stars perhaps they are the silver smoke of mirrors

He could no longer see us through or the emblems of all

that might have been

my ghost stars wandering on an interstellar wind

in dreams you are never quite there

even in dreams even in dreams

mary angela douglas 18 february 2021;rev. 20 february 2021

Looking Glass

if you break the ripples in the water

will you enter the looking glass of the lake

will the perseid showers make then an appearance

and all around the rim of the rose will there be dew

these questions I almost asked You

breaking the web of a garlanded silence

in star flecked chiffon on the night in question

fleeing to hear the greenwood's fretted song

now I abide in the snow flecked time thereafter

the glitter dome shaken the question on the other side

and know that I am still the bride

bearing the selfsame  riddle on the urnward tides.

mary angela douglas 17 february 2021

The Song With Rubies Set

find thee a boat with a silver oar

the emerald light on the morning floor

swift passage through a secret door

find thee a boat

find thee a ribband rose wrapped round

all the towers of the town

deep in the sky yet near at hand

find thee a ring with an azure band

find thee a rose

find thee the close to the book this time

written in rose gold faery rhyme

find thee a way to catch the sun

far from the den of winter, come

shine in the boat and learn to sing

departing earth with a ruby sheen

find thee the key to everything

far from the shadow of all lost dreams

find thee the castle then the King

who can absolve from everything

the heart that fluttered and drew lost breath

and then soared over the rim of death.

mary angela douglas 17 february 2021

The Mission To The Prevaricators

she wrote of her mission to the prevaricators

how it all got washed away in the floods of no silver tongued speech

it got washed away by the mealy mouthed, the thoughtful

those who couldnt muster enough spit to spit

at the honey faced two faced lie.

let me tell you something she said.

I tried. I tried till there was nothing left

and none nearby at all and nothing left to cry out, call,

in the wilderness about, that hadnt been laid down to

a fare thed well and spelled each letter enunciated 

at the puny gates of Hell

to shout, to weep from the thesaurus of grief

to tell is straight. or in golden parables discreet yet

clear as streams

to never sing it to the choir

not to mince words, to mean what you mean what you mean

not the expedient.

He never could say anything else but true. Not in any neighborhood of rue

did Christ curtail the beautiful the fiery word.

I listened to him and not the herd.

mary angela douglas 15 february 2021

We Shall Expect Again A Phoenix Hour

"Do not expect again a phoenix hour"

Stephen Spender

(to my mother, Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas)

we shall expect again a phoenix hour

for Christ rose only that we should rise again

nor mourn in dust your music's fatal dower

no music dies that sought the heart to mend

turn then again, our swans at the dawns clear chiming

released from woe, from the blasting of the bud

renouncing winter's chill for the sweet aspiring

we knew when we were infants still.

see, my mother,  the greening of the Word renewed

as you instilled in me and turned to go

we will receive the songs of the waning towers

released from the spell that made them nil.

we may expect the fairy tale's golden shower

trusting as we did in the Lord's return

the hawthorn bloom, and the suddenly caroling wren

the Renaissance of all we could not win

lives, lives 

and bids the grieved earth to sing again.

mary angela douglas 15 february 2021

Heaven Is Not This Uneasy Truce

Heaven is not this uneasy truce

hoping to live a little while longer 

in a semiprecious peace

to live for clouds

to live for reflections in the water

to pretend there is no time

there is no time at all.

I could wear a blue shawl, a lacework dress

I could be happy with a grand piano and afternoon rest

even if I can't sight read

reading the great books, the childrens nursery rhymes

the books that ranged our shelves at home

or thinking of God when his green presence shone

living again for the clouds

for their reflections in the waters

the daughter of slow time there's a line from Keats

and not the least, and unremitting ardor

for the past.

my curious goldmine.

minery angela douglas 12 february 2021

Kaleidoscope, Cathedral, Reasons To Bloom

implosions of the rose and then the emerald

some shards of olive the kaleidoscope turning

to the child the toy of stained glass which seems

only pebbles when you shake it yet when with

your gleaming starry eye you peer into it

it is folding and unfolding a thousand buds at once

it is your tiny Chartres

your baby etude come to life

in the silences that are pooled in amethyst

in rose gold in the Eternal moment in the nursery

where you never grow old.

mary angela douglas 12 february 2021

Yellow Organza

the toy on the table left behind

is that Time? the children asked

looking down at their blue shoes

invited in toward the end of the Party

when the grownups came

to take them off to sleep

to sleep in a drift of rose petals sweet

so that their mamas could not tell you

which is the flower and which is the child

I'll see you in a while I said to the shaft of moonlight

as I woke up in the present tense

thinking it was their ghosts 

I had just come from seeing

we were all back home

everyone there

even the old bears

the ones that came with their primrose ribbons

ages ago

when we thought they guarded the world

and sometimes the sun is pink on the wall

and we are told the story of the good little rabbits

who had blackberries for supper with cream

but I wept for Peter secretly

who had been in Mr. McGregor's garden

and was punished with no blackberries for dinner at all

and banished from the table.

if only banishment were only in stories

if I could look through the blinds and be

five years old again

and me and my sister in the room with the toy piano

we're dressed in yellow organza

like almost apricot twins

and it's the dawn of music

all over again.

mary angela douglas 12 february 2021

Changed, Changed Utterly

for those for whom each word was like a stick they were prodded with

a soul gouged out

a roll of the eye

how can enough tears be cried

who learned to live within

and not to cry in public.or when the lash stung.

what laurels could they win

with the tide of the earth turned against them

as if they were buried alive from the beginning.

this has happened to many and happens still.

oh God since it is Your will

let the earth be spread before them, changed 

utterly changed as Yeats said so that :a terrible beauty

is born"

redolent with the Balm of Gilead.

golden, with the panacea for woe.

mary angela douglas 11 february 2021

To Wim Wenders On His Angelic Images

let the guardians fall from the skies

as tender as snow feathers the angels

looking after humankind

and find in the whisper of a prayer

in the blueberry picking dreams of the children

the key to beginning again

let the winds sway Edenward

in a pale green listening

and the child lost in snow

recover the light

relieved of snow blindness

and half dream of those who study as if it were a vow

confined to libraries and to a distant quest

take another breath

those about to jump from bridges

take a step back

or fall into the arms of the angels reduced to

human perplexity and fresh coffee

counting the rays of the sun in base two

in primary colours in secret distress, delight

radioing in the beauty and fragility

the tragedy the infinite redemption

of those still on earth.

mary angela douglas 9 february 2021

Folk Tale Reconnaissance Replayed

well, there's a lot of trolls under that bridge

but we're still gonna cross it I imagined the 

folk tale on the big screen you know with the

golden actors who had passed away returned

yeah Pilgrim, John Wayne might have said:

there's the bridge don't look at the trolls

or he would be leaving us in another day

leaving us to fend for ourselves withouten any neverland

never mind

we're going across in the red rocket's flare or glare

no doubt

i heard the whispering generals recommend

on sea, on land, or in the secrecy of our soldiering souls

we'll spin  the srraw to gold

as many times as it takes o.

mary angela douglas 8 february 2021

Prayer Of The Minor Poets At The End

perhaps we have made like birds their nests from things like bright 

beads

or bits of glass, the bloom of red clover, the amulets of the past.

what we have made, we have made ourselves.

and prayed it would be beautiful to any passerby.

from one pintpoint of light from the galaxy of milkweed

we have fastened our songs to the sky or prayed for rains

and for the sun, not for acclaim but

out of sorrow, out of need out of even one shred

of the beatific vision we weaved what we wove

subject to derision.

sometimes when the wind cut the heart out of everything

or on the brink of indecision

still we have made

what we have made from greenest glades or from night shade

and ask for Your benediction.

on it all.

mary angela douglas 5 february 2021

A Traceable Heart

(to my Mother and Grandmother on my 70th Birthday)

with paste or glue and scissors too

construction paper, red

background doily lace, we said

whatever we could spell.

Forever we could spell forever 

in xxx's and ooo's back then

with a traceable heart and so we did.

but now there is no way to say back then

what we could say and seal the envelope 

with a baby wish or two in violets are blue

and hand it to you with a shy and glittering hand

knowing you would understand

oh mama, to my mama or my grandmother

I remember your faces and then we wore the pink or  red rose

on Mother's day to let the world know

you were still on earth;we were that happy.

what can I do now with no traceable heart

but only the memory that's on a loop

of how it felt to be cherished by you in the primary coloured days

and to be sure whether my crayoned letters

were crooked or straight it was a kind of lovely fate that

they would be received by

those hearts I came from that now have departed this sphere

and whom I have loved throughout these years

so that all those xxx's and ooo's....

came true and all the dreams I had from you.

mary angela douglas 5 february 2021;rev. 23 march 2021

We Can Imagine

awe can imagine a Spring that will not end

wildflowers never withering, gardenias iced with the moon;

April's orchid skies..

you're telling lies perhaps the realists will say.

let them.

it is better to carry a mind full of flowers

and so, to please God.

mary angela douglas 4 february 2021

Goodbye In Silver, Over the Drifting Fields

snow is the last dream in the series

where beauty is finally floating away

last to be glimpsed before you're ferried

over the river that cannot stay.

best to be ready for that journey

best to be fitted to disappear

while things that loomed large,

so large for a life time

melt in the dock,  in the last of tears.

mary angela douglas 2 february 2021

To The Wright Brothers At Kitty Hawk

running and then gliding, suddenly aloft is what i

remember the feeling as always being in childhood

when we were free to run as horses across the dusty plain at recess on

the playground at our school running and then gliding

always the secret dream though we couldnt have said so in words

if we were asked or perhaps it was a secret thing

not a thing you would tell just anyone

speaking and then singing,

but only kings and queens and of course, the fairies

who would have known what you meant,

sure and we should have been born as the Irish might say

have said over infinite time pure larks and never known

suffering of any kind sometimes when I am blinded with tears

and so much older now still I think, especially after prayer, despair,

after seeing or hearing the beautiful things;

running then gliding running then gliding into the roselit air

must be again

and will be finally, our achievement.

amary angela douglas 1 february 2021