YOU AND YOUR LOST ANGELS, THOMAS WOLFE

 

YOU AND YOUR LOST ANGELS, THOMAS WOLFE

You and your lost angels, incomparable, importunate, somewhat

Awkward scribe, containing as Whitman said of himself

Multitudes

Striving against midnights to get it all down on paper

How in the world did your recording angels keep up with it all

Even with their vast speed

Kind of a misplaced pilgrim you were

In Asheville blue twilights

Hewn of the Carolinas small griefs like graves

Opened up for you immortal passages

Scattered like diamond dust

You were unperceived

With a kind of largesse; gawked at

Over edited I am sure

Seeking exile from the front porch

Of the eternal everlasting boarding house

Finding no real solace in New York

Whirlwind, tempest, Thomas Wolfe

not marble or the gilded monuments

I imagine I hear you say

where the myrtle flowers sway

your mythos beyond bearing

What flowers shall we lay at your feet

From this clay distance, too late

Thank you I cry to the wild iris skies

enduring, endearing profligate

For trying so hard

To get it all down

Your brother's shadow

Lifted from the ground

The over intensity with which you lived

I hope your wars are over now.

Abundant, burgeoning, Shakespeare 

In another incarnation

Passing so disconsolate, soon from the world

Looking homeward, looking homeward

Looking homeward.

mary angela douglas 6 may 2024