As A Painter Would Paint The Winds

bluebonnets blow in the buffalo lands

and flowers whose names I never learned

I know their colours

as a painter would paint the winds through

the bluebonnets a paler shade of blue

and this is how the prairies roll on

without me

with me only imagining the skies

in spring must be the shade of prairie roses

and I gather them in my sleep

and I imagine their fragrance is better somehow

than the cultivated roses

I imagine this because I do not know

the names of the wildflowers and cannot

call the buffalo by name and I imagine the

blizzards and the buffalo turned to sugar cube sparkling

amazed in the drifts and the skies thoroughly filled

like a canvas I do not know I do not know I

do not know

mary angela douglas 21 february 2015

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

Waiting For The Light To Change

waiting for the light to change small things occur to you

and the bees of drizzle gather under your umbrella

walk, flickers the ivoried, don't cross yells the sign in

poinsettia red yes you feel Christmasy instead

of what seems to be the mood of those

waiting for the years in review

but you're just in love with the color guards

with all the traffic green and red punctuation

and the bees of drizzle fly away just

as the light turns to amber;

and the sun comes out in your soul on a winter day

where the blue birds gather their little prisms

from the long ago

and painters gather on the Seine

for one lost lingering impression

perhaps before the hives of gold have hatched

for them

haloed, the honey of their tears

mary angela douglas 3 february 2015