CHARACTER FOR A NOVEL, MADE OF SNOW

CHARACTER FOR A NOVEL, MADE OF SNOW

(after the Russian)

No one could say because they did not know

That everything everyone she met she made into a thing

More pure than It was in actuality, adversity

As if she only saw through the prism of some ideal

Or would not see at all the not so hidden flaw

How they would have laughed to know

Or mocked her if an inkling showed

Of all her silverly ardent enshrinement

Quiet and afar, where all the meanings are or would have been

Had the earth been kinder

Of what they truly were not or maybe could they be

Transformed by her into some enchantment?

Let history forget what it patently knows

The common round, the cynical ground of things

Who can say but that another history grows one overgrown with roses

The kind small children know, fresh from the angel band

In a mind composed and tranquil as a field of snow

That overwhelms reality and makes it so

Eternity will yield the truth

That she already knows

That holy fool.

mary angela douglas 20 august 2024