the colloidal world is the world of neglected dimensions
I read beneath a tree
half tracing the pale evocative words
that seem to be
displaced from poetry
and the shadowed leaves shining
on my school book
drifting in an afternoon
I clutch absently
the fade from green
of the withering grass
and feel instinctively
that the leaves are dying
and this will pass, is passing
it is their Age, the bright corona of the autumn days.
is it the shadow's leaf or the leaf's shadow
crumbling in my hands that shutters
the too snowy quiet of the page
there is some revelation here
that will not easily disclose itself
music glistens from an open window
(someone's Debussy, sifting through)
late practice of an afternoon
or is it early shimmering
the dream sounds surround me
the song, melting around me
in the orange of the leaves
and their light
unrill the light! if only I could
spoking the quiet exoticism
of the words I love, the otherworldly phrase
lifting from the text to the unseen stars above
blinds me to the page of untrammeled snow
or Love,
trackless, I don't really know
the neglected dimensions
or seek to know
I am suddenly very old
diminishing in the braille of light
I seem not to know
how long I have been here on the lawn
or why or where
the afternoon has gone
mary angela douglas 3 april 1970;, St. Louis, Missouri (Fontbonne College)
revised 23 september 2022 Crystal Towers, Winston Salem, North Carolina
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