SOME THINGS THAT MAKE YOU CRY

 

SOME THINGS THAT MAKE YOU CRY

I wrote a poem about some things

That make you cry:

The war of words

A bird against the sky

The snow iced lawn

The hidden question why

Are fragile things mistreated

When we know they sigh

And we sigh too

For what we are denied

For what we have denied

That beauty passes

And that sweet innocence can die

But oh of things that I have understood

There is little I have wondered

That the world is full of good

For God is nigh

Though circumstance may say

Past Spring’s soft blushing rose

The hunters quiver full before the startled does,

I lie.

mary angela douglas 5 july 2024

NOT A THING YOU WOULD HAVE NOTICED FROM THE BEGINNING

 

NOT A THING YOU WOULD HAVE NOTICED FROM THE BEGINNING

Not a thing you would have noticed from the beginning

How the moon appeared in so many poems over Time

Each one a separate sky

Each one a golden link

In another story

Like a white rose unfolding

Age by age

Like a white boat vanishing

With no passengers

In a dream you walk

Each road as though

You were the ghost of that person

Who stood under the sky of that poem

And cried out to God

Or dissolved in dreams, apprenticed

to a different future

so that children gazing out on you bereft

might find comfort regardless of their historical period

And oh moon set sail on so many waters

Still you shine for me as well

Phasing through the well of poetry

Where you are reflected like a multifoliate inscrutable heart

As if you had no possibility

Of ever having only one surface

In this or any other’s dark.

mary angela douglas 4 july 2024

STARLINGS ARISE

 

STARLINGS ARISE

Starlings arise

And shed the blue black night

Becoming more distinct

In early morning light,

The moon like a chalk smudge

Against a silk screened sky

While I have put

Embroidered worries by

To memorize another orchid sunrise.

mary angela douglas 3 july 2024

MY SONG IS A SINGING SILENCE

 

MY SONG IS A SINGING SILENCE

My song is a singing silence

A thunderous non acclaim

A pouring out of rain

On an indifferent desert

Let tree sing anyway with its muted birds

And move with the green wind soundlessly

No need of renown

No need to muse

That the sky of my heart could grow confused.

Sing for the Lord

What else can matter.

We will bow down, the windy plains and I

Under a threatening sky

The small creatures under migrating stars,

make it rain roses

On the uncomprehending.

And raise a small curtain of light

Lest I fade away from seeing

I am not seen.

Song, its own reason for being.

Is for the King.

mary angela douglas 2 july 2024

ONE DAY FROM THIS INTERMITTENT WILDERNESS

 

ONE DAY FROM THIS INTERMITTENT WILDERNESS

One day from this intermittent wilderness

We shall emerge

The rocks we hauled for them yielding honey

The arid nights scented with lilies

The curved bell of sorrow slicing the air no longer

the harsh word turned back at all borders

the nets forever mended in which we were ensnared

oh on a dare you think that I lie that this is fabrication or

that I am a well meaning fool

you don’t yet know the shadow that falls across you now

one day will be ringed with light.

And what has been heavy so heavy for you on earth

Will break into peals of music

That have never known lamentation.

mary angela douglas 2 july 2024