How I Lived For An Alphabet Of Rose

how I lived for an alphabet of rose

the gift of learning more beyond an azure door

of snow skies very close to Christmas.

the stenciled ivory moon

the hope of very soon

to close my eyes and be

another place indeed

verging on the stars.

the summer unfolding of time

gardenia scented rhymes

the lilies on the altar laid

the infinite parade of story land.

the birthday cake at hand

one true wish kept secretly

the playhouse to be found

painted lime and pink

the power to think free and

fleeting as clouds

all on my own

yet still at home

dreaming and dreaming and dreaming.

mary angela doruglas 20 march 2021

Emigma

you're the one trying to remember where you came from

with a snowy consciousness;pastel lights filter through

the tiny ones that used to bloom on miniature Christmas trees

of pink or white, their scrubby branches.

and you remember folios of moroccan leather

small poems you could recite by heart

and how you felt when the trees grew their own flowers

in late March;

vaguely you remember small stars coming out

of the woodwork

latches that would not catch

a fairytale thatched cottage.

the rose bower where the heart is worn

pale red by the ensuing years

the fluting songs of birds...oblivious to wars

the purple scars.

pale jade, the colour of the storm.

Looking Glass

if you break the ripples in the water

will you enter the looking glass of the lake

will the perseid showers make then an appearance

and all around the rim of the rose will there be dew

these questions I almost asked You

breaking the web of a garlanded silence

in star flecked chiffon on the night in question

fleeing to hear the greenwood's fretted song

now I abide in the snow flecked time thereafter

the glitter dome shaken the question on the other side

and know that I am still the bride

bearing the selfsame  riddle on the urnward tides.

mary angela douglas 17 february 2021

The Way Things Should Be

the leaf and the shadow of the leaf in agreement

the white birches made more silver in moonlight

the snow more dazzling at dawn

the violets I came upon in a dream prolonged

the footprints smoothed over so that there is only snow

there is only purity of intent in the petals falling over the earth

and the Rood of jeweled light rising

and the swan of music endlessly in flight

the story with its happy ending

the Rose that Eternity invents

and  the lullaby

where we drift on a green seam in a wooden boat

and only know in the waves lapping against the boat

that just keeps floating on

that God is love is love is love.

mary angela douglas 29 january 2021

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

Cloisonne Rose On Your Field of Blue

[to a lost brooch]

cloisonne rose on your field of blue

I lost once in the grasslands of summer

and then the trees wept crimson suddenly and

they wept gold

when I looked for you among the drifts;

how chill was the air

and no witnesses.

oh cloisonne rose

you cannot lose your petals there

whatever crack in the universe

has swallowed you up.

the little pink stars, the blue ones

shine for you, thinking they are sapphires;

twinkling at your mystical swirls of

fuschia on blue blue blue
with a tinge of cream from the moon?

thinking you are some other sky in miniature:

your vintage freshness lost in time, oh

who will speak your language there

in the nests of the small squirrels;

in the snow barrows far from here

mary angela douglas 18 february 2015

Sonatina In Rose

to live in a house with rose patterned wall papers

overlooking a rose garden

and when it snows, the roses merely sparkle

not forgetting to bloom.

to drift from rose room to room

as if you were fine perfume.

the venetian blinds are pink.

the tablecloths pale green.

you play the piano and then it seems

that music blooms and remembers your name.

how when the rose gold of familiar clouds shifts

over the trees

will you explain to the neighbors

to the angels at their ease

the tint of your windows.

or how will you even care

who live, a rose, among roses

anywhere you dream this.

mary angela douglas 26 january 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

His Paintings Mourn His Departure

[to Vincent Van Gogh]

cypress and star

and the wind soughs through the paintings.

a yellow wind;

the one of orphaned gold.

with heartache's  topaz hardly dried yet 

on the brushes, knife- the palette with its rare

hint of carmine,

of carmine that sobs like a rose in a gully washing rain

when the petals leave-
 as if, they are bruising the sky.

as if, they are bruising the sky

the milk glass galaxies strain against the blankest canvas

the executors have ever seen

and the hail of sorrow pelts in aquamarine's

distraught- summer-

and the crickets, who, because of you,

thought they were stars in the grasslands=

and that they sparkled-

simply-

cease to sing

mary angela douglas 1 july 2014;rev. 20 april 2015

Van Gogh Mid-Afterlife In His Wild Rose Fields

I weep in gold dust fields over which his blackbirds fly

in the museum

and they cry: "ominous, ominous"

can't you see it in the skies?  truculent is the world

toward the artist who only loved the sun.

yet in his letters home

in three brilliantly lucid volumes.

closely read his colorist desire to

use all colours well and unforgettably

but, Dear Theo, colours cost money-

how much it cost him to go without

them making do with yellow and yellow

iterations 

only he knew.

somewhere beyond

the marigold's sigh,

couldn't you weep anew

said the angel by my side

(sheer sunflower glow)

in the hope of his Heavenly

fields, post murder and not, suicide- 

when, burst like a light upon him,

all he did not understand;

where wild rose fields are climbing toward a sun

that cannot dim, vermillion.

and in the skies a freshly minted green

is ornate as the heart could wish that loved that much;

emphatic as a heartbeat are the brushstrokes' impact

viewed from this side only, clear amber crystalized in

the thick honey of days unbelievably

made of poverty, disdain, 

of painting in the rain

while the neighbors spied on him and

cawed against his sanity; were they sane?

it's slow tears I am crying now

crystalized in the poem- 

all amber gone by now

for the misplaced poet hardly anyone read

closely or otherwise while he was alive; allegro or penseroso

as the golden scores were played unfinished-

as they had to be and second-guessed,

long years without the  sun;

oh then- as now-

sub-lunar, distant are the puppeteers of

docentry everywhere but not 

the field flowers.

may it be said, though I am no painter,

it isn't for him I mourn 

nor for the rolling auctions 

of a heart that never could be dead ah,

how they must have said in the days that followed

(the gathering angels of his harvest)

but who will befriend now 

the orphaned haloes of his stars 

mary angela douglas 17 november 2013;revised, 6 december 2013

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...

THE ROSE BOOKS OF ANATOLY KONENKO

THE ROSE BOOKS OF ANATOLY KONENKO

[to the artist Anatoly Konenko and his rose books]*

waiting for the beautiful ship to come

we stood on sinking continents

our eyes flooded with meteor showers

in a compact room

an artist sat

making books out of dried

rosepetals

children in their sleep

waiting for the beautiful ship to come

might never know

the roseleaves he was turning

at precisely the midnight

of the world

bird shadows over the blue

green melting poles could understand;

sensing the end of all auroras

they sang only for him

the artist arranging rose pages

binding with flowers the ...

with fine mauve stitching that

would not come undone

rose inscriptions

rose inscriptions

rose inscriptions

was all that God could read

mary angela douglas 13 june 2009

*a contemporary Russian artist from Omsk who makes tiny books out of dried rosepetals and other things in amazing miniture. He made a book for his wife out of rosepetals inscribed with Pushkin's poems about roses.

OOPS! I FELL DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

OOPS! I FELL DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

oops! I fell down the rabbit hole

in my poem

Hello Alice, lovely dress the

perfect shade of blue I

was sent to warn you

I wish I could have

warned myself

now we're plummeting

past the Rabbit's

bookshelves

stop! I want to

read the titles so

I can find them

when I wake up...

there's going to be

a tea party - you'll

be sitting at the

table in your party dress

but you won't feel invited

despite the pink cake

in the middle of the table;

you won't get a slice

no matter how nicely you pour tea;

you ask too many questions

and you won't have a moment

to yourself. even if you cry,

other people will utilize

your tears on the spot this is

that kind of dream: you

can't wake up when you want to,

dear.

but the door to the garden,

once you get through-

just stay: on the still point of

a turning world that makes no sense;

like a jewel-box ballerina when

the music ends

remaining you by barely breathing

so that at the last

you'll be

unperceived and bounce yourself out of

their false rose frieze

mary angela douglas february 2008