AS IF WE WERE SINGING, NOT READING

for William Butler Yeats

 

who could imagine his biography

a documentation of clouds and fevers

of the Soul whirled up from dust

called from distances

but never really among us acquainted with

the jibber jabber of irrelevant Time

could it even be translated into human rhyme

a question I ask myself

when the clouds fade into the night skies

no longer visible as clouds

when faint iris darkens in Heaven

no longer visible as life the life

of such or claim that you could chronicle stardust,

flame, a person here but not wholly

you will never get into your book

no matter how you peer into his mirrors

interview the witnesses

cast shady looks

no matter what you say in 500 pages or less

I already know you cannot know

just write the biography of mist

you wont extract the pearl from the shell

or you will hinder it with gossip

and sell sell sell

just as well to leave it all

and read his poems aloud as he wanted to

as if we were singing, not reading.

mary angela douglas 5 august 2023