They Have Strewn My Heart On The Yellow Sands

“and such as breathe out, Cruelty…”

[from the Psalms…]

they have strewn my heart on the yellow sands

where Don Quixote and his dubious friend once wandered

they have strewn my heart

and I’m too small to see

above the windmills' relentless turning that

there was a letter in Dulcinea’s  hand

sewn with stars that burned out too early.

pale are the shadows.

fragrant, the Escorial.

they have strewn my heart on the yellow sands

and purple are the clouds that gather El Greco:

It’s the telling hour for the bellwether of beauty

endlessly woven, torn out of the skies

it’s the Knight of the Lost Towers coming back too soon

It’s the Knight of the Mirrors do not tell him where I am

they have strewn my heart on the yellow sands

and only God can find me.

mary angela douglas 11 october 2012

Eclogue

[based on music of the same title by Gerald Finzi:

"Eclogue for Piano and Strings"

And, to Conrad Aiken]

looking for lost words again

I turned to find the angel-driven songs,

migrations high above our heads like a Christmas

far removed but Doppler gold

in their approaching who would

not murmur, “stay” in the instant

the heart-split garden flamed

in the eastern corners,

remembering…

where are we refined?

I turn and turn again

harp ravaged in the wilderness

and music bears me on

I don’t know how

beyond the startling phrase I almost recognize:

Mirror to mirror shining  in the flood within

the flood within the flood.

distraught are the angels, looking on, yet-

still as a pond with starlight filled, serene:

withholding rainbows till an appointed time

while I ask lowly and so out of tune

is it so much farther on?

and I am not at home

where snow forgets, it seems, forever -   to fall and cover

this tenured sorrow

that devastates that devastates

the softly flaring mind that haunts the future Spring unanchored 

still- so beautiful yet flowing on

finding no place to rest

mary angela douglas 6 october 2012

A Mythical CowPerson Protects The Homestead's Hoard

I’m out here hoarding stars where no one sees-

sharp winds, the prairie grass in a summer breeze bending low

the moon so near at hand

and all its gold in a Fool land where people who

want to keep it all to remember are

criticized, cackled at, cajoled.

and psychologically construed.

(How rude).

what if she keeps the pale blue dress she wore

on a day without heartache, and every other; a stack of mail

 delivered

from a wartime front you never suffered

and every magazine she ever read.

Bring in the glass cases to display, instead.

Break open new cherished scrapbooks to adorn and stack them high,

You buzzards. Do you dream in bisque?

And festoon, not chip at day-by-day (you dim subtractors).

the pride in having survived it all with even the same whisk broom-

the sentiment in having loved and lost, the condiments of childhood,

the bell jars with dried roses everywhere.

what’s it to you? 

the trophies from the private wars

you never fought.

the ticket stubs and posters carted out

from movie palaces seen and trying so hard

not to flicker out within her mind-

you’ll bring them every scrip-scrap back

you empty warehouses,

scoundrels feigning cutting-edge therapies.

when there's nothing to analyze-

Good Housekeepers, every one

You blankity blanks

I’m rounding up this round-up now.

why do they treat it like a Faith

that every room must show no age, or accumulation

of personality, not a trace but look like no one ever lived there.

A perfect Model Home for ghosts. But they’d be scared to move in

after you, you bunch of egg-suckers.

Who made it criminal nowadays

to be surrounded by the things you love,

your whole life long-

your layers of civilization

as time wears on

and more and more

to take your stand in the scheme of things till the End-

with your own old armchair, books stacked everywhere read

and reread, dear friends viewed and reviewed a Smithsonian of

personal archives near at hand with waiting birthday candles at-the-

ready, all flossy threads of

all the rainbows rickrack ranged  in a candy striped wicker sewing

 box stashed to the High Heavens

with colorful notions you never had…Mr. I’m Trying Not To Roll My 

Eyes over all this

at least, not on camera…why don’t you build her another Wing?

That would be helping. (Keep your hands off the chocolate cherries.)

Or another cabinet des fees for the

Burpee seed packs in the kitchen drawers spilling over and over for

the hoped for gardens

of magic beans tended by my Grandfather Jack

pouring out like the stars into a universe where

even God keeps on collecting… (think, Expanding Universe, remember?)

 and never says in a disgusted tone,

“What is all this junk?”

But “Leave Her Alone!” that is, if you even asked Him, did you?

before you trespassed here with your

eyeball on that Heirloom Harp…and Grandmother’s bone china.

think how long He’s been at it

And who’s going to show up at His door

Sunday-dressed in pearl

with a van? I double-dog dare you to.

Who ordered you to strip our lives of everything

And call it good, you newfangled, fangy monsters.

Here’s your twilight.

What’s next in the strange cold plan:  The Great Museums?

The Libraries? The memory of the world? You dismantling weasels.

It’s time for hoarding snowflakes now it’s gotten that extreme

and Christmases:  I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past

Long and long ago: You put that down! Or I’ll Christmas decorate you

Before the midnight chimes before that’s scratched out too by the

 clueless rats in the wall,

who favor only minimalist writing.

Forgive me, but it’s true.

It’s time to stop this melting meant for Show and artificially

 induced.

or maybe because you’ve no life of your own

or maybe you’ll become famous for making old people cry

late at night, after it’s all been carted away by the undertakers

come too early.  Or the Grinch.  “I’m repairing this Holiday Tree

sweet Cindy Lou…and the figurines…too”

What did you do with the Baby Jesus? Did you take Him, too?

my Cindy Lou cried so half the neighborhood heard:

Holiday Schmoliday.

Good night interior designers of Control.

Good night, Good neighbors with unfurnished trending souls

Get off get off Our Own True Lands and Loves.

And go build something of your own.

mary angela douglas 3 october 2012

It Worked For The Fairies At Some Point, Didn't It?

(thinking through the affordable housing shortage)

“The fairies have never a penny to spend;

They haven’t a thing put by.

But theirs is the dower of bird and of flower

And theirs are the earth and the sky.”

-Rose Fyleman-

to Rose Fyleman, William Allingham, and Mary Norton

maybe we’ll go take the lid off an acorn

some place in the Forest with violets close by-

(where snails don’t creak through the underbrush to drink off the dew,the noisy things)-

line it with a thread of moss (for carpeting), put the “roof” back on and pray hard to become very small

(though, not in that order)

to fit inside, like the lease always says, in:

“quiet enjoyment of the premises”

what’s the worst that could happen?

no one would come to assess the property

or collect the rent.

or the mortgage.

here’s their dilemma:

(which acorn are you stashed in, anyway?)

probably no room for the dining room table, though-

even without the maple drop-leaf.

certainly no big screen anything.

but also, no bad tv.

no sheriff with the

eviction notice unless he had a

stronger prayer life than could be imagined,

a legendary instinct

and could shrink that small

after all that Cajun barbecue, strawberry pie;

Lord help him with a sorrowful job.

I mean it.

but even then it would probably have to be

either him or the eviction notice

that slipped through the munchkin door carved carefully…

at lunchkin-

you know how paperwork is, unless it’s poetry.

but you’d give him coffee or toffee ice cream in a thimble

some cruller icing crumbs or a drop of green tea.

and something scrumptious for the birds.

(on days off, he likes to feed them.)

how about Lincoln logs.

Tinkertoys. Leggos.

or any combination of the above?

(good thing you never threw anything away you hoarder

Cause here’s that rainy day again a goblin screams)

build it into a waterfall

like Frank Lloyd Wright.

or like a project for the Science Fair

that one you had such hopes for

in the first wind gust to tump

over and become like  pick up sticks

scattered everywhere, but colorfully!

giving Beauty back its own

even in catastrophe;

what more could a tiny artist wish for

but then, there’s squirrels-

-or my name isn’t Thumbelina-

and it’s almost winter time.

you’ll either be buried

(we’re back in Acorn Cottage now)

and the squirrel

will forget where he put you next Christmas

(this matters only if there’s air holes

Down there)

or-

you’ll be a Fall, crunchier than could have been counted on

after squirrel-school snack for the little ones-

kind of like a Jonah and the whale situation from the Bible

only furrier, fluffier, meaner perhaps, in a hard frost-

pray to be swallowed whole (!)

though no one in Nineveh’s going to

put up with a  prophet they can barely see-

even if you do manage to shout at them

from the forest floor -

standing on tiptoe with a sparkly message

near the thudding pine cones.so.

maybe we’ll go to the beach all on our own

(and still quite small)

off-season- and find a couple of pale-

pink largish shells to tuck under

or something else that’s free the sea

tossed back where it’s always creaming waters at low tide.

near the Coast Guard, if you don’t mind.

I’d like to be defended if at all possible.

but do you really want to be there when that lady

in the floppy hat with the perfect one red rose

putters down to the shoreline for sea glass near

your home sweet home

and you’re inside asleep

and wake up

hammered into earrings?

mary angela douglas 2-3 october 2012

Welcome Ray Bradbury To Your First October In Heaven

Welcome Ray Bradbury, to your First October in Heaven!

the pumpkin hallowed angels sang

and scarlet fringed, crowned, laureled, old friends, new-

refrained from story-telling for a while

when Ray got up to speak:

Poe, the others, Dickens, surely-

Washington Irving…Hoffman, E.T.A.

Evgeny Zamyatin.  Fellini…

it's such a ravishing day

I’m glad I’m here

where it’s always frosty morn and bright cerulean;

the corn’s forever shorn, the dreams fresh-tassled …

vita-nuova green

there’s spearmint in the drizzle!

and me without my hat or a spigot!

Significant are the pies:

I’ll have a few of this and that…

and light is always misting for the missed

who’ll join us, soon enough.  Sweet Margery smiled

at his ebullience, Ray, self-styled the same but glorified

and more than ever, twice the child his cheeks all chipmunk

plumped with candy corn

(no calories now, he chortled, not that I ever cared)

here’s my best jagged jack o’lantern grin for far away fans-

I’m all out-of -doors forever!

in the crispest apple pie fluted air;

Here! Have a wedge please, to begin

the wide-eyed crystalized candied Fair

that never ends; the cotton candy that can’t disappear

(or friends, and that’s the best of all he sighed, but happily);

the hot dog mustard relish partaking, sure, you bet!

and smothered in onions.

the wild blue lightening half-way tamed into

and that quick out of the bottle  and tangoing,

chock full of harmless tricks.  and rabbiting scarves of rainbows broken off-

merely for Party favors…at His behest…

 a little higher up than I remember

that Ferris spitting fireworks near the crystal  tent of God

could make the bees knees turn to jelly

where the gold-leafed leaves blow over randomly

the wine dark purple stars…then linger on.

(and John Keats smiled.  And Shelley.)

 mary angela douglas 1 October 2012

Small Christmas Fanfare For The Aftermath

 [“though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

I will fear no evil-

For Thou, art with me…”

-Psalm of David (the 23^rd Psalm, “The Lord Is My Shepherd”)]

the self-appointed jailers of the Unseen

I have seen

superseded by the glorias

of stalwart angels. Children, rise to the

God of all living whenever we are dying

from the lack of sunsets

in the corridors of ill-used power

at work or play

or used up daily

in unprecedented ways, in a chic disguise,

by colleagues of the Superficial. Lies.

and Faux Evaluators.

where are the fountains of Your truth?

on the outskirts of all this, moved farther out,

unzoned

receding like the stars in all my dreams

out of sheer necessity; still beautiful, though

fading in the mist to wind up burnishing some

otherwhere-

that I may drink

unbidden and unknown at the brink

of all Your shining, on a day, still-

and unenforced.

I feel Your glorias rise

in between the subtle beatings

barely recognized for what they are; hid well

within the gossip of the town, the office interchange

the retailed screed

and branding of the already branded

by Your Living sigh.

what further image do we need

if we are Yours?

or isn’t that enough to be-

beyond all water cooler,

non-profiting surmise-

in the sunrise of the truly free

beyond the ambiance of those

forever looking down and down

on, line-by-line

all those in the valley of Your sighs

who live on with You there:

enchanted beyond reproaching

wanting nothing more

mary angela douglas 29-30 september 2012

In Your White Cathedral On An April Day

[to Claude Monet]

in your white cathedral on an April Day

I watched the pink light turn to green (and then,

 gardenia)-as all time slipped its slip-knot crying, stay.                                           

and now, at a farther outpost,

who can say when the parfaited moment

flared from a snowflake, captivating?

to close in a foreknown spring, too early.

I want to say that light

should always be this way

and if the spring has deeper hues, or somewhere,

solace that can stay-

we will know it when

our grief has turned to

a dusk that is flowering again, in a garden of white light, unending                                                             

mary angela douglas 30 september 2012

To All Those Beaten Well Behind The Scenes

[to Lawrence Housman, maker of brilliant fairytales (especially,

“Rocking-horse Land”)

and to anyone on earth who feels or has ever felt trapped…]

“…when I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me…”]

-Psalm 42:4 The Holy Bible

to all those beaten well behind the scenes

scope out the golden corner in your mind

the last one left and

touch the panel in the wall behind your back

and turn around three times in

the 3-inch track they’ve left you with the one rose bush

they forgot to pluck up by the roots-it’s there for you,

the one star they forgot to block from the cindered sky;

to all those bruised invisibly I cry

there is a finer kingdom in your mind

one sapphire staircase down

so plan your exit well and soon

before the beryl blazing of the moon lights up

the washed-out wastelands far behind

and the mission scrubbed without you.

do not turn back

but find instead, renewed,

the wings not made of wax

you labored on in the jeweled rhyme

the Red Sea parting at high noon

or the provident Ark in time patched high,

high above the Flooded lies-

stocked well and dream-on-dream

packed solid, locked and clicked so china-cabinet bright:

sealed from the inrush of the universal seas-

on the ceaseless starry rocking-horse of God

little children, little child grown up

to ride -  and ride - and ride-

mary angela douglas 1 october 2012