Shrines

la dama de rosas, camellias too, the bronze chrysanthemums

the altar view these flowers I have heaped for you

oh my lost cathedrals

what have they done to you.

the marble poured the innocent blue

the small chaplets by the mill streams.

I see you seldom anymore in dreams

the star flowers arranged among the ferns

the yearning of the pale shrines.

see, I have heaped these flowers for you

primrose, and the summer violets you never knew

lay hidden under the dock leaves or turning in the cooling winds

where have you vanished my last cathedrals

where have they gathered you where have you been

so that everything vanished and folded up into a fan

of infinite embroidery lifted from the land

and words were clipped and songs mid flight

and all that was daylight became deep night

still I will return to lay before the small nativities

the centuries of chivalry

the turning on the dime

of murmurations of starlings through the amethyst skies

I will remember my lines

my heart full of lilacs,

I will remember everything. 

beauty, turning, on a wounded wing.

mary angela douglas 6 march 2021

Or Not Live At All

here on the roster of the unimportant

through my rococo angels of the rose and gold

unapologetically may I muster

the call to arms of the beautiful that has been designated

waste, ash.

something oh surely human beings no longer need.

oh all the taskmasters are in agreement. with their blank ecologies.

I will embroider every sun and moon of it, the least star

the scantest ray through the basement apartment window:

a thousand angels in each dust mote reflecting Light

or we will live in the shadow on the sundial all other colours failing

contemplating the swift the still silver rains falling

how they sweep the birds in, in waves of utterable music

how you can still hear them

though the drones drone over you.is the Great Mystery.

I will stoop to the small pink flowers in the grass

and whisper to them the end is not near

the end will never be

till the last quasar of beauty sparkles

we will endure you and I

listening to the call of wild and irrevocable beauty

from the far regions,

or not live at all.

mary angela douglas 5 march 2021

Her Hair In The Picture Was Braided With Jewels

her hair in the picture was braided with jewels

she quite forgot were there

unconscious in the sunlight of her beauty rare.

this was a real princess, I thought.

and turned the page. and the sun was still out.

and it was the same day

though the jewels were darker somehow

who can say why

old picture books make me cry;

the ones they published

before the Great War

for children

going out the door

and the wind, suddenly coming up

in their faces.

mary angela douglas 8 march 2015

Department Store Christmas Window, 1958

oh christmas window in the downtown area

where the dolls move from side to side carefully

pouring their infinite tea;

dressed in christmas velours! by a doll-sized Tree!

wide eyed, will they never look directly at us?

but then, they might spoil their attire.

their mothers might scold.

who cares, there's snow on the glass;

behind us a sky like cranberries

hand painted and an otherworldly lighting

from somewhere we both feel

(my Grandmother and I)

beauty stricken at the same time

standing before the scenery if not yet, the Play

in the same candlelit hush:

pre-Edison, branching angels

mary angela douglas 3 february 2015

I Saw The Amazing Skies With Their Very Own Watercolours

I saw the amazing skies with their very own water colours

shine and I felt the shine inside of them the pearl decked clouds

the feeling of music in me

drift, do not drift away I yearned but could not say.

and this was childhood.

they do not teach us this and think we are little because we are

amazed at the

skies and pearled within; they think of us as shells

and require of us school.

and yet without being taught we loved beauty, the high winds;

the little breezes in the rose garden.

and felt we could say things to the stars.

mary angela douglas 25 january 2015

The Snow Sledge Drives Through Lacquered Lands

the snow sledge drives through lacquered lands

and I have lost my way again

biting in half for sustenance

the raspberry chill of former syllables.

Anna Akhmatova: you are in my heart

but the Snow Maid's pastel musings still

could vanish overnight in any country where

darkness singes, mimics light since

beauty is always melting here on earth.

and sometimes by decree.

Anna Akhmatova, you are in my heart

even though I am hardly Russian

and I don't know why your

white flocks have been driven to

my door as though seeking shelter-

in every weather your especial Firebird gleams

fiercely above these scenes of quite human

distress where with each fresh travesty you

do need air to breathe and poetry

to remember who you are

even when burned beyond recognition,

Anna Akhmatova or

standing in the ruins or in

the snow-clouded hands of God-

mary angela douglas 9 september 2009

You Should Have Been Painted In A Lilac Mist

[for Anna Akhmatova]

you should have been painted in a lilac mist

looking out to sea yet-

holding the sea within.

you would have stood apart

by an open window, breathing-

immemorial-

the scent of pine trees where

another poet walked-

hearing the sound of the sea

holding the sea within,

its dove-grey caesuras

meted out so carefully

like the steps to the fairytale

castle and the end of the story;

your raspberry syllables spilling over

where there could be no decrees;

with your friend who loved Africa

and drew giraffes on your school

slate, possibly, who hated raspberry

jam even then;

with your small son playing

learning to walk in the

pine-needled shade;

with your other friend, who loved life

and pure delight, praising its syllables

of true delight and small feasts managed

in distress: a tin of sardines, Armenian grapes,

a miracle;

banished like a real prince:

by his side, his starling wife

hid all his poems in crummy saucepans -

and in her heart ever after

o darkened wing - o muse

o hidden stars half-turning into fire,

Cassandra, who is listening

like snow it all disappeared

shining into a farther sea

inside you

after nothing like a Golden Age

no one in any language

can explain.

I sit at my kitchen table in America

as white as you were at the

height of Terror,

Anna Akhmatova, getting paler by

the minute, in public housing

with other golden refugees of a

free nation

the kitchen radio proclaims:

"A Great Nation deserves Great Art"

I think sometimes

great art deserves a great nation;

I'm

selling my books off, one-by-one, to live;

when I get to the last book I'll go

live under a pine tree and make

books out of pine bark

but this morning

you shine on my momentary wall

the color of buttermilk

looking for Russia, still-

looking for an open window

for the sound of the sea

for an undeniable clarity

that can't be bought or sold...

Anna Akhmatova.

ask God for me

if you don't know yourself,

is it anywhere in the world

or only in

the next poem

that we live-

mary angela douglas 18 june 2009