Wednesday, November 17, 2021

A Faint Nostalgia For The Stars Of Eden

(on Kitezh perhaps or on listening to Debussy's La Cathédrale

Engloutie in my Grandmother's piano studio)

and saints were bullied for cherishing the mirror images
though the image refracted the Lord God whom they could not see
directly and then not at all, and by decree
read the marquee on museum walls;
kicking eternity the new price of admission
in a blank slate dream of utter deprivation

and under a stone regime
we could not welcome our orphanhood
frozen over. where we stood.
where were our hands.
we learned the alphabets anew

under so many alien commands;
the brand new dictates
while all we previously loved at Easter
was rubbed out of the picture
or we lived blindfolded now;
snow blistered.
but lake water sparkled and could not be restrained
and we remembered former things and what remained:
a faint nostalgia for the stars of Eden
while what was underwater continued to glow,
a rose funneled fire.
and the willows gleamed.
mary angela douglas 17 november 2021;14 february 2022

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