AFTER THE SUMMER OF MARCEL MARCEAU

after the summer of Marcel Marceau

a man imagines he is permeable as light

or water that he can impersonate flowers or

stones or how it feels to be neither stone nor star

nor trace element even

to be nowhere where you are, quartz or fledgling

the lilac cloud or the carmine one

the veins in the leaf surpassed

to express the green through the fused flowers as

did dylan thomas perhaps

the feeling when first reading that poem:

at last, a long ago feeling now

to imprint that on the air

without despair

you would have to still be twenty

wouldnt you, with a paper doll hearts intention

to be no one where you are

fledgling or magi

or maybe I dont know how it feels to be the clown

demonstrating the possibilities

of speaking without sound with the flaming

baton of snow silence incinerating

representing the tear flung angels

as though in shadows you could paint the worlds

any colour you liked just by feeling your way

around the invisible 

perimeters

forever.

merman with no diction but the sea.

mary angela douglas 20 january 2023