LOOKING BACK AND STANDING OUTSIDE

LOOKING BACK AND STANDING OUTSIDE

For a moment

Through some ripple in time

I suddenly stood outside of time

And saw myself as I was, momentarily

In an earlier time with life before me

When I was not aware

Of what I am aware of now

Of how what I  imagined that time to be

What it stood for was so illusory and

misread by me

Even the sunlight was false

What its sentences took the place of in my uncomplicated mind

Took the memory of and made it seem

What it was not, a beautiful spring day

Flee, I said under my breath

To my earlier self

Flee, that place is not what it seems

Those people are not who they seem to be

Leave now I cried and though it seemed too late

I also saw the angels preparing another way  to go

Like Joseph and Mary in a dream commanded to go

Into Egypt because Herod was going to be Herod

No matter what else happened

That could only lead to the spring day turning 

Back to its own disintegration revealing inordinate cruelty

With consequences inconceivable to me at the time

That were mere seedlings then of a terrible turning of events

The trajectory it would never complete for me,

carefree, so idealistic in my favorite blue dress

And I wept

A thing impossible to describe

Much less to experience

Except as a ghost of a ghost of a ghost

Of yourself sending an urgent telegram to the past self

flagging myself down in the honied sunshine

Do not continue as you are where you are

That train runs off the cliff.

mary angela douglas 20 january 2024