(to the poet Kalidasa)
dear far cousins of the field flowers I love from my childhood
in Arkansas I look at you and think what a miracle that I can
see
you even in this way without the breeze that flows for you out
of high clouds
without knowing the winters from which you emerged
still from your colours your not at all familiar petals
I feel to my fingertips longing to treasure you in bouquets
of farflung song how
mysteriously you are linked to the wild rose, the
Queen Anne's lace, the blue gentian or beloved blue violets
and if my meadowlarks rose and were able to sing to you
where you are tranquil in a transposed Spring not all that foreign
to them
I know they would be happy there with you
on the other side of Heaven on earth
if you think of the flower fields as a single continent bridged
across both spheres of the mapped and mapless earth
(the one of dreams within dreams)
where different birds too serenade you in colours I've never known
and are happy that they do.
mary angela douglas 27 may 2021;28 may 2021
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