Carnation Lily Lily Rose

[on the beautiful painting by John Singer Sargent]

]

we hold the lanterns in our gaze and they shall not go out

the lily, the rose, the lily rose shadows their carnation

stillnesses the children will not ravel

the edge of this twilight ever softly they blossom

in the borders near the clumps of the flowers familiar to them

and the lanterns sway in the painting as if it were a real garden

and only slightly it is, the wind of the carnation, the lily,

the rosed lilies

the light the light

we hold within our hearts within within

the coloured lanterns swaying in the

purple instant this cannot fade

the lights go out or

the lanterns stir in the evening breeze

the carnation breeze, the beautiful the beautiful

weaving of the lily and the rose all before and afters

shining, the self-same lanterns in our gaze

the night that will never come
the distant song forever distant
time and the flowers at a standstill
the children, murmuring

mary angela douglas 19 february 2015 rev. 11 june 2015

Did I Arrive Too Early In My Apple Green

maybe I should have regretted

almost treading on your shadow;

removing one charm from the bracelet of the sun:

the one shaped like a treble clef?

the tiny piano with the hinged lid?

these were my crimes

the winds never whispered through the lilies.

the fir trees.

there was a meeting somewhere.

did I arrive too early in my apple green

confounding the centuries

and steeples with their glitter snow.

it comes down when you shake it.

I should know.

mary angela douglas 28 january 2015

To The Beautiful Kingdom Of Norway

they'll bend down to see

as if to pray

it may be

the lily or the rose

invisibly wound

like a music box music

you'll begin to hear if you

are careful.

it seems so hidden, out of sight-

but it's just hidden in Easter grass-

glistening, multicolored always

waiting to be found

and it's a candlewick's wonder,

thread of delicate intent

that you can't follow, yet-

beyond the baseboard's curve or Hamelin's artisan

at floor level

the exhibit you waited all your life to see:

the one explaining everything so high

and yet, so low I see

a mirrored pond in lingering blues and greens

closer to Heaven, as you go

the very mirror's mirror on the shore-

the one you knew they'd leave behind-

edged in pink sapphires...

careless, cherished children

it may be hard to find the day before the day

before white flowers at the cathedral and

in between,

tears of the King and Queen

am I too small?

could I get in for free

midsommer's island's drifting out to sea

beyond the waves in the picture

you still might find the

children picking berries on the other side

of a small day with no candles in it yet

with smaller clouds floating by they

may not hear you they will find rest

in such a patch of shade:

fitted for a petal's scar

or to cirrus, lovely nothing at all

no longer wounded-

having found refuge under a rose leaf

rosebud stillness who could

understand...

a brief flash like crystal and a

splash "oh no!" you almost see

pure fairytale sorrow

stumbling past annulled in a pale

blue music fleeing

everything Large.

I've one doll slipper, satin-beaded,

left with a glittering shoelace broken

in trying to find the Museum with the

Giant's Installation: can you help me, please-

can clemency be granted to one

so small who can't find anything at all

among small flowers hidden in the grass

when words turn into stones

before the unbearable

I pray in a voice you will not hear but

you stare through in beautiful blindness

the keyhole, knothole to a deeper world

at rest

where gondolas drift always

upon the violet waters

under nectarine stars.

mary angela douglas 22 july-25 july 2011

Note on the poem: the origin of this poem is the tragedy in the summer of 2011 on the island of Utoya ain Tyrifijorden, Buskerud.  That same day I had received in the mail a book of Russian artist Ilya Kabakov's installation, Where Is Our Place? which impinged emotionally on the grief I felt for Norway over this event unfolding over several days as the coverage noted quite movingly the tears of the King and Queen of Norway which I also noted in my poem scribbled in at the last moment...