PSALM AT THE END OF TIME

dear Father this is a message from the field

though I am no soldier

yet I hope this telegraph transmitter will break through

in no code at all to tell you

I miss home

I miss the golden streets and cornbread

the angels fanning themselves

at the height of midsummer

with their haloes

as my mother did once in a high school play

in the humid auditorium

I miss the feeling

that I am in my own zone

earth grows strange

remembering old stars

the seas are restless

I think sometimes more than ever

they will launch a hundred thousand tsunamis

flecked with diamond light

just to see Your Face

if I could I would launch myself

into the old porch swing of my grandparents

forest green painted house

and tip it toward the strawberry moon

praying you would find me there

and that would be that 

of all this.

mary angela douglas 9 january 2023