LIKE THE ROSE ON SAINT-EXUPERY'S PLANET

 

like the rose on Saint-Exupery's planet

how foolishly we have counted on the

tigerish aspects of our one thorn

to help us live out our rose span life so much longer

to fend, when the snows come

well; well, if we could

but a small, a truly small curly sheep stands in guard

and the Shepherd

who smiles at our laughable and most delicate delusions

and plucks us for His Garden in the last moments

nodding from our stems.

mary angela douglas 29 april 2023

LETTER TO ST. CATHERINE (OF SIENA) REPOSTED ON HER FEAST DAY APRIL 29, 2023

siena's stars look down on me.

St. Catherine-

from pitch-true tiles of pink and green

on crumbling walls in a picture book

I trace-

camelia faces of the early martyrs

torn from very light

though leaning into a wind I cannot see-

they're still - still - shining...

like a crystal that can't quite dissolve-

lean out of a crackling anguish

I cannot explain-

fix on a vision barely

out of view in

this mosaic's span

with faces kind

like home, as you remember it-

the distance widens and

I'm by myself, rehearsing no

brief candle's exit

but praying sotto voce at the

temp agencies God please get

me out of here from so

many office windows vistaless;

bring the ladder of prismatic light

and lead me out in my

robin's egg blue dress

a thin disguise but you will understand

I'm in the color of your sky-

reading the clockface wrong

and in disgrace-

but gold slips through the interstices

of cracked venetian blinds though everything

else excoriates-

and whispers that I'm not in trouble-

and there's a word I want to say

if only I knew how-

to crack the

strange veneer of this captivity:

that it's the moon washed gold to silver

through clouds good angels hold in place

for such a little while

and poppy red is a

dress for Christmas Eve that crackles like

a new bought star you can't put on yet: you're

hiding your old paint-box under "P"

and clutching the rose-threaded book of

hours they must - not - see...

I'll see again

through white enameled rain

the rainbowed sequenced eyelash

I cannot explain

the radiance on the wall of my lost islands.

let steps on the pavement fade

and history's parchments

matter less and less than

purloined arrows bouncing off the sun-

there's nothing in the mail

when you get off the bus and run

toward a beryl glory richly rung

where once the noise of shadows

swallowed prayer

and lied: "The King is Dead".

let lesser kings brush by to your dismay

the rose eclat of your

lost teardrop's

coda smudged...

and the unopened envelope

stranded on the table

like a lost country.

Castaway, they're leaving

their last scar

said His decree,

on purple unruled paper-

I'll be the child

of white cathedral rains

released from school

and pearl-drenched in the end

and on the very page

a snowy word waits for me

in a poppy colored light

a nosegay,

valentine set in bloom

paper-airplane blown from God's own

curio hand and spiraling past the

campanile in the picture

at the right place in the music

so that childish classroom voices

chime out "o-oh...!"

and doubled up in velvet of

the Princess' train and still

in love with God you're finding

all you can't explain leaning

out of the window set with jewels

who could replace-

and off to the side and smiling

barely out of view

with raspberry shrub fresh-made

on the Christmas porch

with golden chicken salad golden apple laced

on haloed toast points, lightly buttered

with wax paper greetings - marbled cake

with a scrolled and silver music still unwinding

sprung from an anguish I cannot explain,

the cherished faces wreathed in pink and green

you missed from home-

mary angela douglas 6-7, 10 november 2010

NEVER FORSAKING YOU

though the mountains fall

though they fall into the sea

still you will be with us

though we lose all history

though chaos reigns

you made from it once the world

all of space, beyond Time

full of grace

though the mountains fail

we shall not quail

because we seek your Face

because we hide

under the shadow of your wing

because we sing through all the nightmares

because you sing hush my child

this is only for awhile

all will be right again

all will be right again

think of the green grass

think of the blue skies

the sun that sets will also rise

you will look with new eyes

on beauty restored;no more tears shed.

close the door.

and rest and know that i am

and will always be

your rest, your rest 

undeparting.

near at hand.

never forsaking you

never forsaking you.

mary angela douglas 28 april 2023

THE STORY COULD ALWAYS HAVE GONE ANOTHER WAY

 

perhaps I was careless and didnt watch the time

but who could expect that the coaches made of pumpkins

would all break down in the same rhyme;

fairy godmothers always understate their advisories

already my new blue dress looks limp

and the trail behind me is littered with sequins falling off

it doesnt matter now what at the time seemed

devastating

Im taking a new approach to work

and lining the cupboards with sprigged paper now

we've called the engagement off.

I was always happier alone

just a stone's throw from my mother's grave

where the birds sing as if they were made of silver

and they chime

and I will live here for a long long time.

darning the Mysteries.

mary angela douglas 27 april 2023

FUGUE FOR A LITTLE GIRL

 

how shall I lift my heart  above the clouds

where the rain lives wondered the little girl

in a long sleeved dress

breathing into her bouquet of small pink roses

on a Saturday, she imagined herself this way

and let the dolls play by themselves for awhile

they were SO well educated

in the things that mattered

having heard all she had to say

and twice on every other Sunday;

sundaes are for another day in summer

with caramel winds and the green grass mowed

like a perfume found on Grandmother's dressing table

I remember far away things as if they were near again

or almost

glinting like foil stars in the Heavens

in the colours of Giotto

and I will remember this day she did not think

because this day was surely already forever

in my stocking feet and skipping on sidewalks

that will always always be here

even if one day the earth falls into the sea

where we all will be mermaids

hand in hand on the surface and singing.

mary angela douglas 27 april 2023

THE MOON FLOWERS

you only long for the towns that never existed

impossibly glorious persons in every Age

they won't detect you in the census

but I remember you on every page

how glad I am to intuit you are still present

on this earth.

are you okay? do you still find it possible to make ends meet?

I hope your sleep is filled with dreams where what was not

comes clear in the vu finder, found

and still more clear with passing days.

oh dreamers on earth, may you prevail.

and do not worry when the evening mail

is only circulars from the A&P or deals

on hearing aids.

something tells me on the wind

you are about to begin again

dreaming it all up in style

please live a long long time

we need you here awhile longer

looking for gold under every bush

like children who can never grow old.

sifters of riddles.

conoisseurs of the evening breeze;

the moon flowers.

mary angela douglas 27 april 2023

THE JOY OF THE BIRD SOARING OUT OF THE ASHES

even as a child I knew the fairy tales were real

before anyone told me, one way or the other

they comforted me and not because I expected life

to be the ultimate game show prize

there is a misreading of fairytales I dont know why

as though to love them were to be in flight toward

that which is not real; to strive to live on a cloud.

I contend they are more real than what is deemed

reality, facing reality; reality is light overcomes the darkness

somehow we put blinders on made of the Snow Queen's

unfeeling puzzle of ice whereby what is beautiful and winsome

is held captive

fairytales in the true sense are life itself

rife with deceit and the triumph of the truthful, rhe kind

and yes, the visionary.

the careful, shuffling off the name of simpleton

willing to see the heart of things not to be deceived

by mere appearances, showing courage before the dragons

singing on the  road of penury and lighthearted

knowing redemption is real and today, whatever there is to find

we rejoice in, whether the sun is out or overclouded

Divine Love shines, in us, in us who won't deride it.

to believe the fairytales risks also being taken for a fool

therefore I persist . to be a fool in this overly jaded world

to believe what is not possible and yet the not possible is

all around of. the mystery of having arrived in this world at all

the joy of the bird soaring out of the ashes.

dont believe in fairytales the screaming message of the sophisticated

world

in its witchy wretchedness

and o, they lie who do not understand

tribulation is only a searing moment;

redemption is always ar hand.

and the beautifully transforming eye.

mary angela douglas 27 april 2023

I SAW THE GHOST OF WALTER DE LA MARE (FINAL VERSION)

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY 150 YEARS WALTER DE LA MARE:

April 25, 2023

I saw the ghost of Walter de la mare

leaning, on an April curve of music,

unaware

I saw his hands of tender glass

and the thin china he was drinking from,

reflective, the dark raspberry still waters

of beauty he drew up in pailfuls-

the silver pooling stars

at his beck and call-

the curio cabinets bedizened,

strongholds of childhood jams

and the apricot laughter of the cherubim,

by his side.

now acorn cups half brim from twilight rain

the fairy feast’s abandoned, he complained

“Is there anybody there”?

he said, answering his own soul alone

“the whispering trees of Eden”,

he wept.

they pour the ocean into a thimble

our golden ships may founder in the Moss,

there are other losses,

song is made desolate, Walter de la mare

long years since your flag was

lowered to the ground,

marring with pearl

mere semblances of Music

everafter.

rust from the muted region’s flaking.

your antique tears I brushed away,

no one’s watercolor, for so long.

mary angela douglas 20-21 december 2009; 27 july 2022;25 april 2023

PLEASE NOTE: THE TWO LINES IN QUOTES ARE DE LA MARE'S OWN WORDS IN TWO OF HIS POEMS: The Listeners, and Goodbye. I do think his poem Goodbye, outside of the King James Bible,and the enitire works of Shakespeare,is the most beautiful poem in the English language

This poem is also based on an anecdote in the book Deathbed Visions, where a friend of his not that many days before his death was conversing with WDLM in front of a china shop window they were halfway looking at while conversing and he said that while gesturing animatedly all of a sudden he SAW THROUGH WDLM's hand as though it were transparent to the china in the window display. So I used this in the poem as well.

THE ROSE RED SEALING WAX ON THE LETTER'S DRY NOW (FINAL VERSION)

 the rose-red sealing wax on the letter's dry now;

the rose-red rose-white story comes to rest

like the see-saw on the frozen playground

like the rusted swings still floating in no wind at all.

frost-emulsed are the Christmas windows

and the glorious Holly and the Star we looked through to see:

the golden bears delivered from their worst selves

on such a cinnamon-sequined day as this.

but I can't tell you the end of the story

or why my cloud-shaped jigsaw piece won't fit

(not even on Christmas morning)

in the thin sky above the little house

swept penny-bright and latched.

I went a long cold way in my scuffed shoes

to fling a milk quartz crackly word into

the moss green pools of

something not remembered, but that shone.

don't tell your wishes ever or:

they'll not come true

was whispered in my every dream

but I'll tell you the Christmas angels cried:

"FEAR NOT"-

though years of speaking only underwater

made it hard to see

their real words on the page.

I wished that God would turn

the snow-bright word my Mother packed

(along with her sandwiches of butter and sugar)

into a language all of the angels hear.

mary angela douglas 5 october 2009;25 april 2023

*references to the Brothers' Grimm fairy story: Rose Red, Rose White

THOMAS CHATTERTON (FINAL VERSION)

 ["Il pleure dans mon coeur..."

-Paul Verlaine (after Rimbaud)]

Thomas Chatterton the rain

runs in rivulets off the roof

and down the colors of dreams

so obliquely

this distilled

you might remember

Thomas Chatterton

youngest brother to amending music,

so unmended

is it always raining

at the back of every poem

and just for you?

with your antique pen brand-new

your last loaf hard

as brickbats-

steeped in documents

of moon-drenched moment;

rosebud, salient madrigal

these small strawberries

in the grass

I've picked for you

your eyes pooled with treasure

only you could name.

forgive all lack of feeling:

the forgeries of the cold;

all those who meant to read you

whole-heartedly.

bless from your starry attic

those who followed you, too late

the rain in this poem

and all others

mary angela douglas 1 june 2009

I GATHERED FRESH GARDENIAS;YOU WERE MISSING (FINAL VERSION)

I GATHERED FRESH GARDENIAS;YOU WERE MISSING

for Virginia Woolf

I gathered fresh gardenias: you were missing
and zinnia periled summers waved me by.
I followed down the path of your demise,

my own breath caught in trees
above the Flood
and pressed my fingertips into

your orchid-backed mirror's
perfect pearl-on-pearl
turning through each

dream-curled edge
into the whorl of
contravening years

and sallow interpreters.
o willow willow war was near
but the kindness of your mind

does not contract; the crisp
carnation rooms are still
your own:

a crystal condensation's flame
on the flung-open window; the
inlaid diaries of quartz

and rain-
all chatelained gestures foregone
for these moonlit cloud-inscriptions

of uncalibrated grace are written
on the evening sky.
sensing your angel's churning wing,

I cried.
o rose geranium stillness
violet sky

against which lemon lovely sounds were
splashing...
your apricot excursion's standing down

oh why
no second snow on snow's appearing,
starred like winter's cotillions,

only warmer...
your garnet constellations
break apart and my heart

falters
losing this kaleidoscope
forever

with no continuance:
the semi-precious laws remain in force.
mere sleeves of her egress remain:

sheer-beaded brocade caught
as the moment, strand by strand
too visibly dissolves.

desert me now, sotto voce,
as your angels melt in music,

gone

then I saw
brightness brightness
every shining phrase unshunned

and drowned in Light

mary angela douglas 30-may-2 june 2009 

THE CHILDHOOD OF MARCEL PROUST (FINAL VERSION)

 your teacup brims with starry light, rich

traceries of time - translucent as

fresh raspberries bought

on a day by M. Swann

heaped on fairytale plates that chime

when the scenes shine through

somewhat berry-stained.

bright doves float through your

stained glass hands through

opaline rosaries of the rain and

tuned to a strange cessation

in a dream we almost see

the glint of (home):

taking the madeline

dipped in snow

and a nectared universe...

your linden angels pause, mid-air

cognizant of a pale green rustling

but no one's there

just once to say:

Good night, dream's child,

you'll sleep the steeple

out of the sky's

late roses at Combray

and wonder how

it all turned into

stalactite colors overnight

dripping down winter walls

sweet candle-wax and pure

resurgences of rain.

but the 13th guest arrives

mid-scene to no

gold place setting

set with rubies

and who can still the lime-leafed - unrestrained-

lamentation of the rain...

your hawthorn branches

in the dusk

its storied snowy paths more dear

to lead you out of houses here-

this suddenly - no longer home.

but you're still writing when the angels come

the rose-torn chanson of the rain

scratched out, then blooming once again;

they wait for you to finish up

fanning themselves with their crystal haloes

distracted by your clouds of sheer Limoges...

mixing the pink or is it blue

tinctures of remaining skies

you turn to ask them

just to stall:

the peacock or mimosa?

but God turns down the flaring wick

color by color almost

regretfully.

the angels turn:

fiery medallions on their sleeves

like Christmas refractions

most intensely felt,

a silken step...

and mama comes

with a bunch of heliotrope

a fugitive smile then

"Marcel!"

blue violet banks off creamy distances.

prevail in Heaven now

when childhood fears are hushed

and the holy candles lit forever

from hawthorn petals in your hands

you clutched at the last moment

afraid to let go.

how would you ever leave them here-

all your white orchards,

where Beauty's often not revered

along the via dolorosa

and breaks the thin importunate glaze

on a lake of half-way frozen

lies.

and lost and lost

where mirrors on the

other side

can't give the key-light back

of cherished nacre

anymore.

but the phrase in rainbow clarity appears

through veils and veils of summer rain

and this gardenia darkness knows that

every time the music's played.

it rushes on...

mary angela douglas 29-31 may; 1 june 2010

THE SNOW SLEDGE DRIVES THROUGH LACQUERED LANDS (FINAL VERSION)

  

the snow sledge drives through lacquered lands

through fairytale collapsed remands

and I have lost my way again

biting in half for sustenance

the raspberry chill of former syllables.

Anna Akhmatova: you are in my heart

but the Snow Maid's pastel musings still

could vanish overnight in any country where

darkness singes, mimics light since

beauty is always melting here on earth

and sometimes by decree

Anna Akhmatova, you are in my heart

even though I am hardly Russian

and I don't know why your

white flocks have been driven to

my door as though seeking shelter-

in every weather your especial Firebird gleams

fiercely above these scenes of quite human

distress where with each fresh travesty you

do need air to breathe and poetry

to remember who you are

even when diaries are scarred beyond recognition,

your cameo light

beyond all inquisition,

your swans scatter seeking they know

not what, they know not where;

consigned almost to classical despair

and yet not mute

Anna Akhmatova or with a still

defiant air

standing in the ruins or lifted, in

the snow-clouded hands of God-

mary angela douglas 9 september 2009;15 august 2022;rev.9 march 2023

PARTICOLOURED TEARS WERE FALLING THROUGH THE EVENING, BLIND (FINAL VERSION)

 

for Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920=June 5, 2012)

this small elegy on the pianoforte

oh all the rainbows have fallen into the earth, headfirst-

and "snow without Christmas" as he cried
has stunned his sometimed midnight's
sunned chorales.

but - even now-
when the first curled handbell of grief is chimed, at times, magnolia creamery of the long before,
you're still in business

on the ivory keys of snowconed pages turning
in the lock
or filtering round pure
apricot sparkles down
oh God knows how-
my April shuttered mind.
it's wondering I dream to find
no new poet laureate of the homesick, but
distraught cloud horses whinnying on their own in
folds of cerulean, coral, forestalled-
with storied apples offered: oh wrought of a banished gold-
(as they are now) -
to keep them home.

the day wears on…we won't know clearly now
when dark ferrised earth kept turning into...
blossom ladened trees renew their snow and
petal the sweetheart mourning: "morning
minstrelsy is dead" throughout the vacant orchards but is she
pale pink surprised into carmine-
by valentines received
in the afternoon mail
from one thought dead…?

while we as we behold through a looking glass pinhole in the constellations:
his ice-cream coloured trollies
hauling back and forth
new circuses of sighs and working prisms-
("dewdrop, listen"…he whispered so we wouldn't forget you ever-
or children would justlet go and all at the same time
their last balloons losing everything then
it felt that way, to them…)

It's got to be now on Opal Rails
somewhere else, going on…
couch this in bluebirds and hydrangeas…
and cool cups of lilied moonlight on the grass
of other planets looking just like home

held higher above our heads than these dreams
have ever been before: long
past the vast pinwheeled parades of the strolling musicians, musicless

on earth,

but not where motley is torn-
its falling its falling through the evening blind
and near
our particoloured tears, unending…
for the something unsurpassed
and all, all-in-all at last…
caught by a weeping God in a ruby red bottle-
the best firefly of the whole Summer…

mary angela douglas 14 june 2012 1: 49 p.m.

AZUL (FINAL VERSION)

 [to the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881-1958)]

Juan Ramon standing amid blue flowers

did not hear me calling

small birds flew on every side

through chinks in a chain-link cloud and over

the scuttled rainbows of your sighs I picked up on the ground

to far-away laughter

oh but "not-it" I cried out from

the space left by your shadow

on the grass

like a child in a game of tag,

the last one left in the

blonde and feathered fields still

unashamed

of starlight by the railroad tracks

and hotel rolls with real pats of butter-

at home in the pink stucco of "play-like" afternoons...

Sr. Jiminez bluer than the bluest

shadows could be,

could it be the earth is disenchanted?

will we grow apart?

stand still, I said, with a mouthful of pins

I will sew your shadow to the sky

and line it with pale green stars

it's strange while

I'm still trying to speak

in lilies and small roses

in blue diamonds secretly

distinctly...

oh why do you keep on

haunting your own poems

it hurts so much

even in my minted sleep or

is it, dream?

to be crumpling up the violet

of mimeographed vocabulary lists

again-

and practicing

balletic leaps by the

persimmon trees

it's not that I'm that far

from all those merry dialogues

about butter about arroz con

pollo about beaten chocolate-

regarding time I find it hard to keep

the tenses straight:

do I keep breaking the heart of moonlight

without knowing why-

or is all that hushed?

and can I pray to God in

pure hibiscus, too?

entenderás...

a hundred years from home

no one recognized my speech

but the blue wind and God

and the tire-swing swung

in glittering silence by the

small girl dressed in

blue porous happiness...

mary angela douglas april 26-april 28, 2011