Foreign

I have wandered all day in a foreign dream

now I am tired and I have misplaced the way

looking for an old address in purple ink and on a skein of sorrow

and they say I'm the wrong country to feel this way

I feel this way today and tomorrow

I believed in the pale green litanies of leaves

in the silence of clouds as they drift changing scenes

the unexpected rubies in the clouds, the amber seams of

the trees though I am among  these only a pale mirror yet am I real

even in a foreign dream even speaking the language poorly

even though they look at me as the typical GNP, tourist, simpleton

because I am from America and shouldnt know any better

should not have these complicated thoughts like an ancient music

but its from the old fairytales I learned to spell

and I learned them

very well

to believe in the pale green litanies of leaves

God turning the pages of the book of trees

I am in all of these but you regard me never

because I have wandered in a foreign dream all day 

and sewn in the dim glass the parting of the waves

and night is coming on at last and the moon in opal dredging up the 

past

when God will take me in his measuring glass and understand 

everything.

mary angela douglas 8 august 2021