Thursday, October 19, 2023

RUBY THROATED CHRISTMAS AT THE LAST (FINAL VERSION)

  

(to William Butler Yeats wherein I imagine the poet's last Christmas) 

 

the sands run down your ruby-throated  hour glass

and up and down the scales of words that

can't sit still, you sing:

 

the dulcet chords still stringed; prolonged,

the glass bells chiming in the Christmas air

though for not much longer

 

will the angels gather, as they did long ago

above the children, anxious to go home

and break the silver envelope of pain

surrounding the outer atmospheres again

and smash the harps of stone

and pluck the silver from the moon.

 

bright poets, the brightest in the room

how empty, empty is the loom

how we've forgotten all that sings,

that sang oh, all that about the human

 

child exiting human mischance

in a fleeting dance and through

a faerie entreaty and it seeming plausible.

 

suddenly, in a tower's room

you'd start to hum a tune you

thought you never knew before

with the cabinet crystal shining.

conspirational. and more,

 

the violet figure at the door

of Radiance returned.

 

mary angela douglas 21 november 2013; 13 january 2016; 19 october 2023


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