HAS ANYONE SEEN MY ROSE VELVETEEN FLATS?

knocking the paper doors down

that they have made of You

I turned away,

not knowing where to go

with my child-sized suitcase, in

my red cloth shoes.

the clock of yearning's set to

endlessness and

I weep on pouring the news out to the wind

but it's like a ripped-out seam within

not knowing when I'll find

all my lost porches

floating backwards on the Tide

and my best dishes, ringed with ferns...

when one Word tolls the

bells that they have muted, smashed-

maybe snow-jeweled quietude

will return

but now I only find

that I am I

and dream for you even

without knowing how.

ethereal clouds will come

and their attendant angels

as if from an extended Trip:

bring me crushed violets

bunched

in silver ribbons strewn

the never-ending stars

the winding mists to live in-

mary angela douglas 25 august 2011

ASLAN* OR THE BRIGANDS GO THE OTHER WAY

ASLAN OR THE BRIGANDS GO THE OTHER WAY

[to Jesus the Christ, the Lion of Judah (the overcoming one...)]

the brigands go the other way;

calumny stares stone-statue dead

at the white-frost crossroads

in my head

suddenly everything

turned to song.

white flowers staunched

the senseless wounds

where late and long my soul had bled

and I cannot relate to you

how suddenly the winter fled.

everything suddenly turned to song

the hand upraised struck down

at last

and evil's anvil hatched and passed

flowed by You into

silver stars.

I wept at Your bright armies;

and I could only bow my head

when-

wolfish sorrows stalked away

and shadow-puppet Scorn

knew Dread.

suddenly everything turned to song

like a forever Eastertide

and we were finally by Your side

and couldn't be overthrown-

mary angela douglas 7 february 2010

*After C,S, Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia

Facing The Dragons Down

through kingdoms now

as it was then

you tread a certain

inward path

while they line up again

to stare you through

on a very tiresome playground-

or hurl, with no one else around

a mere boulder or two

down the embankment.

don't ask me how

they know it's you with

a birthday message for

your ailing children

done up in maypole ribbons bright

and the fairytale hour-glass

sands on the low-end...

but they could find you

in their sleep

on the margrave's run-down highway-

and creepity creep creep

through the heat-

roiling their chartruese scales-

waving a finny fin-

casting a munching eye on

your last bit of raisin toast

with frosting...

or burping from an office window

just to throw you off-

a murky word in-between

presentations...

do not fear them;

let them rave:

thrashing the marigold window shades

beneath God's diamond and

discerning eye-

you may look swiftly all around

but no one else is there to pound.

they must mean, you.

don't be alarmed;

don't be concerned.

it just that it's your

turnity turn turn

To Be Facing the Dragons Down-

mary angela douglas 23 august 2011

A Lapidary Stillness Fills The Room

a lapidary stillness fills the room

while I'm too tired to hear

the angels singing. forgive me when

I say, oh God

that it seems hard to live this way

but I'm setting the scene the best that

I know how

and jewel by jewel,

as You did.

lay all your shaken griefs aside-

folding the opulent

shadows on the chair

not for the last time, yet-

while off in the distant

semi-precious Light

a heavy door opens and

then closes-

mary angela douglas 23 august 2011

Blake

[to William Blake]

I saw you walking

the hills of green.

angels on either side of you, conversing

and cherry-bought bells resounding

in the dove-sought skies such flame-tinged

clouds appearing:

yes and the fleece of

skies that you loved once-

the cirrus roses...

you were so happy with an ink-stained smile-

peeling a scroll of topaz from

a frayed coat pocket,

meant for the martyred poets.

you said: don't cry anymore

all consternation's fled, don't cry,

no rose is dead.

art is a shining ship, delivered:

the choken river's spanned.

the mocking charter's been revoked.

they hoped your vision was a sinking sun

marked by three crosses on a stolen hill,

but the day is a flower endlessly fluted,

and cut in crystal now

where tygers kept their radiant promise-

where darkness is banished

to a farther castle and the

face of the Lamb is so revealed

whenever we are speaking in our

sheer unfiltered gold

and realize

we are still alive my

bartered friend!

a bright wind drives your

mended sails toward home

with the diamond husk of all your

poems received, the

heart of it believed in when you say

that all your trees are filled with singing now

where nothing, nothing is a bane

how

blazingly the Light

of every poem remains-

mary angela douglas 22 august 2011, 2 december 2005,

Valentine With Doves On The Seven Last Words Of Christ

I am lost in the

Kingdom of the Heart

I said to no one living

since the day they felled the

King of it all-

seven swords run through my heart

seven swords and more

and oh the hilts

set with rubies

with russet diamonds

with the sunset of the world.

and such a vein of

jasper runs through

the soul's so pleached amazement standing still-

that I forget the words to

sing to you

a last border ballad.

my soul.

become the white dove's scar

and anodyne of mercy-

the cleft on the curl of the

last creamed wave

in this senseless valentine

shadow-box, shadowed,

shifted by unseen wires

and winds.

the dove cries out

there's blood on the track

there's blood on the track

and more, look back

to the fairytale motto

of snow-cut

delicate drastic cameo

and descent:

Be True.

in the version scalded

by fairies under broken glass-

scattering their gifts of light far

from - from the retreating henchmen

among last things.

all swords dissolve

with the help of God

who is also weeping

who is also weeping

oh dove, dove, dove

mary angela douglas 19 august 2011, 1 june 2010

I Dreamed Of The Sea, Of The Children Of Lir

I dreamed of the sea, of the Children of Lir

coming through the mists of their childhood

unrecognizably

oh beyond reach

let words be fought for but

what am I supposed to say

when saints have courted endlessly

the hard and diamond edge of

your impossible retrieval?

when are you coming home

o vivid heart eluding

bereavement, banished wing-

are you carving the thick tiered

wedding cake mists as if they

belonged to you?

when will you find rest

beating the crystal air to a

fine snow over centuries;

are you very nearly free

or do you dream your muted

carillons below

have all passed on?

it is a real question.

are you?

stay alive can you

be carried sleeping into

deeper exiles over

God's bright shoulder?

it is a real question are you

finding no more countries left

for you

on earth...

I lived as some suggested

sending golden transcripts off

somewhere into space

from brilliant institutions no one ever heard of

and the envelope sealed with evensong and

all the mauve distances dissolving...

are you the one

bargained over at sales

not open to the general public-

subject to steering committees

charged

with capturing the data?

let us return, unopened,

frailer than snow and so unchartered

to live in Danish stories, after all-

dreaming of journeys

over long waters

looking at light

through the spent leaf

and the mottled cloud

as if at a kingdom

somehow lost to me

still still my own

prospective student,

employee, friend,

any person at all:

launched to the unfairytale-like

docket with a

mirage-like defense

jump over the railing!

there's no qualifying ground

for one so fey and the wild swans must

move through

the lilac foaming of their weariness.

it is also true

the glimmer of your sunset mind

is a sheen of no use to them at all

and will count against you at the agencies

more than the questions you leave

blank

when you're combing the waves

oh not

for 3 good references and a jacket

they can believe in.

then you'll descend, dear

Christmas-bright contestant, saint

like the exemplary

Children of Lir with your

one cloud-sleeve unfinished

down to the violet waterline at last:

caught up by sudden angels on command-

recommended by the wounded Trinity-

weeping poems and

the clear bells

of little stars

mary angela douglas 16 august, 14 august, 20 july 2011

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...

After The Gaelic

AFTER THE GAELIC

[to Turlough O Carolan for his songs in Heaven(1670-25 March 1738)]

I could not see through the crystal page

I was ever that lost

and wandering through the

dream you dreamed

how could I spell

the moon, the stars-

let it not be said

I wandered there in vain

when Christ was on my left

and on my right

when bright through the

thickets of dim sleep

his kindliest name appeared all candlelit

in reels of rose, in my own sky-

never to be forgotten.

it was then I saw

through the crystal

men called poetry

straight through to the guardian green

of abiding song-then I knew

there is no farewell to music.

and God gave me

the names of the moon and stars

and the harp of perfect stillness-

jeweled

mary angela douglas 12 july 2011

Despues del Gaelico

Yo no podia ver a traves de la pagina de cristal

yo estaba cada vez tan perdido

y vagando por el sueno que sonaste

como podria hechizo de la luna, las

estrellas

que no se diga que vagaba en vano

cuando Cristo estaba a mi izquierda y a mi derecha

cuando brilla a traves de la espesura

del sueno oscuro

su nombre mas simple de la rosa

hay que no olvidar jamas.

entonces fue que vi a traves del cristal

que los hombres se llama "la poesia"

directamente a traves

del angel de la guarda verde

de cancion constante-

entonces supe que no hay ninguna despedida

a la musica

y Dios me dio los nombres de

la luna y las estrellas

y el arpa de quietud perfecta-

de piedras preciosas-

  

mary angela douglas 12 july 2011/Spanish translation 1 august 2011

I Sent A Letter To The Russian Poets

I sent a letter to the russian poets

not expecting a reply

on an ordinary day when tulip

trees touched the last of

a winter sky.

I did not stand in my

own light, but I knelt down to pray-

thinking of the russian poets.

I saw the angelic orders rise

above the broken mirrors of the world

when I cried out, I want to stay-

here in the wounded wilderness of those

who only wanted to keep singing-

across the star-swept gorge of time

through fire, through flood

through rampant mysteries unfolding,

clearer in these returning years,

like them, I learn to

stand inside the music with the Lord

while the bullets fly past-

while in my soul

a lone bird's song

echoes and reechoes:

silver-sad as rain or missing planets-

yet with a mysterious gladness

on and on forever

like the Russian poets-

mary angela douglas 1-4 july, 2011

Envie Una Carta a Los Poetas Rusos

envie una carta a los poetas rusos

y no esperaba a una respuesta

en un dia ordinario

cuando tocan los arboles de tulipan

el ultimo del cielo

de invierno.

no estaba en mi propia luz

pero me arrodille a orar

pensando en los poetas rusos.

he visto los ordenes angelicos

elevarse por encima

de los espejos rotos del mundo

cuano grite "quiero quedarme aqui

en el desierto herido de aquellas

que solo queria seguir cantando".

a traves del desfiladero de estrellas

barrido de tiempo

a traves del fuego, a traves de inundaciones

a traves de los misterios desenfrenado

desarrollo-

mas claro en estos anos de regresar

como ellos aprendo a permanecer

dentro de la musica con El Senor

mientras las balas pasan volando

mientras que en mi alma

el cancion de un ave solitario

se hace eco y resuena

plata triste como la lluvia

o los planetas que faltan

que como una alegria misteriosa.

una y otra vez para siempre

como los poetas rusos.

mary angela douglas 1-4 july 2011 Spanish translation 1 august 2011