to the poet, John Keats
go I know not where find I know not what my favorite title for
a story anywhere is from an ancient Russian tale
and I have sought at least in dreams to follow that directive
so that my hands bled from the nettles weaving the shirts
to set the captives free and waiting for in blind prayers
the downrush of delivering wings my life is spent
I seem to have wandered in vain along each frost glazed
rose drenched lane
for that which was not found nor sought in me
but in my seeking oh what treasure there
in the purpling darkness close to despair to see Orion's band
or in a single shaft of sunlight half awake between hard lessons
see the Jacobean ladder through September's mist and the traffic
of angels
this is to live for poetry as it once was
the rose and the briar
to sing beyond the resonance of earth half caught in the mists
and the rains never inured to disdain but
becoming lost to Time itself or, by design
not found not lost either, and yet akin to the in between
curve of the music where the ghosts are seen
the loved ghosts, the disappearing few that loved you
or seemed to...always, perpetually leaving you
like the heart rending echoing bar in the music repeated
to weep into the thorns to be forlorn in the world at large
yet inwardly rich that even in a ditch
you dream the years away and climb into the boat at last
that rows you to the Blessed Isles or are to be helped in
by those who guarded every tear
unknown to you, in your disgrace
though now you see them face to face.
The Holy blazing Trinity.
mary angela douglas 12, 13 july 2021
No comments:
Post a Comment