Snatching The Tufts Of Starlight From My Lambs

[to George Herbert]
and to my poetry "flocks"

snatching the tufts of starlight from my lambs

a thief of mere peach sunsets came to call:

Hold Sir! I cried for I have more than technicoloured flocks

from the One who made all colours shine

than you can carry off in broad daylight:

under God's unblinking Eye,

thieving the type from the printer's, bold as May

in her several ribbons but it's obscene and will not

last the hour that fades that fades from grass
 green (and gold to straw spun backwards).

though gem cracked are the stars before you've finished

gleam to gleam and the very winds will cry away! away! to no avail

from the golden apples in the hold of childhood fantasies=

bereft, all all  the silver strays-
the violet-ridden and the Praise-

,. 

and tissue thin your arguments hold sway

above the indiscriminate mobs

you cannot  emulate my soul.

mary angela douglas 20 january 2015

The Best Poem Of All Is To Wake In The Sunlight

[to the poet, Shelby Stephenson in honor of another day]

the best poem of all is to wake in the Sunlight

purple shadows like an arbor on the walls;

cross hatchings of the little stars now

behind clouds.

behind clouds that pass as another day will

burning out again in gold beyond the

trees across the street.

sometimes half waking from a dream they may

sway cloudy like the trees of childhood;

for a moment maybe you're back there

with the kitchen coffee meant for the grownups.

you, you're still a high chair child yet.

drinking the sunlight in.

mary angela douglas 19 january 2015

The Museum Of Sadness

and do you have a museum of sadness?

your very own? scattering the flowers before

you as you walk the trees may be while you

walk alone or on pavements of snow

hand in hand so tenderly with the Holy Ghost

the klieg lights of the moon on the lustre of the

very same marble and you know you know

the exhibits you'll want to see. the cafe across the street

as you remember the twilight's blue.
the angel guards with their grave faces.

you recognize the saturday sweaters, various letters.

the dried arrangements of who knows the best

bouquets you could have been sent at the time.

and in a frame of pearl the day you believed in

that came and went. the little stove that cooked cheap noodles.

the cinnamon shades are drawn.

and now, is it enshrined?

are the shadows mauve as if they were flowers too

in hiding from the brilliance of your sighs?

the pale green rectitudes in the scrapbooks on brown paper

where the tape is peeling the Christmas lights unwind

and in the corner, the things you wore
 amid fresh tuliped dreams:

the scarves with the glittering thread

the pale dance shoes.

the things you thought you said

inscribed in gold

and in your heart with the arrow drawn straight through:

a sob.

mary angela douglas 17 january 2015

Let Us Review The Hidden Things In The Picture

oh let us review the things hidden in the picture:

can you find them? the things that don't fit.

the oranges on the pear trees

the blue rains slanting upside down

upturning the parasols as if they were flowers.

moreover.

little houses with no doors in the foreground

the gnomes standing out there in the rain

with no raincoats. missing the jampots.

foam on the underside of the sea and so much

farther down than on the ink stained maps.

your Grandmother's old jewelry in the hold

of the ships beyond recall:

oh lost and milky jade oh the soft rose golds..the tiny clasp on the

necklace of the mustard seed.

 the pale trees snows;

the faith that you knew then with

its bridal white of the green grass verses underscored:

gold edged on India ink paper delicate as Heaven

must be:

the sad moon's steps all sloed in the middle of the day  and 

the hour when I don't have to say

the reasons I believe.

mary angela douglas 13 january 2015

Winged Music Starts Awake In A Clouded Chamber

winged music starts awake in a clouded chamber

at the turning of the rose stair in a dream

we came to life or wished we could and

soared over woods like the clouds we were

when we were small

and all the skies seemed chalk pink

scrawled on His translucent blues

and you wore your new patent shoes

and it wasn't even Sunday!

winged music stayed at home and hid

beneath the polished piano lid

you polished yourself on Saturdays

and then went out to play.

and whether the leaves were falling down

like London bridge without a sound

and whether the sheen of snowfall on the way

caught at your heart 100 x a day

it could never be enough

the music played.

mary angela douglas 13 january 2015

My Cherry Coloured Clouds My Drifted Snows

my cherry coloured clouds my drifted snows

so merrily she summed up all her sums

while we traced leaves on coloured paper

unwrapped chocolates wrapped in gold

in season and out of the orange cream suns

the very ones the berried ones we wove we were

in the loom-ed shade and lemonade bright as brimming 

ever made was ours to quaff where  creeks behind

mysterious houses diamonded we played

or cooked on the cookless stove the pink desserts

for anyone who'd come.

and it's so lavish sighed the Princess with her

orchid shoes to match...and gracious
at the wedding of the dolls.

how can they say what we had dreamed

and thought, was lost!

marveled the poets while cloudy in the blue marbles
 the sidewalk singing grew and this is only

one of all

the jack-starred songs we knew

when braiding the clovered summers of
our favorite afternoons

while the crumbed honey crystallized
in the icebox...

mary angela douglas 13 january 2015

When The Swans Turned Home

it isn't fair could she have said

to the chill in the corners:

these impossible fairytale deadlines...

here is the room of straw.

the task of gold.

and not much time at all

for learning now what you should have learned,

then. so tears begin and the question of the hour:

will winter ever set?

and then a bargain's made

with trolls in a bad temper.

is there any other way?

and coach worthy pumpkins are sorted from the patch;

rag bags fetched into gowns.

or in a room of forest green

mute as an ancient spell

the princess weaves seven shirts

and one with an unfinished sleeve

that will forever be a wing

when the swans turn home.

mary angela douglas 13 january 2015

Where Are The Poems Embroidered With The Moon

where are the poems embroidered with the moon

you asked your shadows in a silver room

when there were no replies.

and children wondered not you wondered why

and who was then the guardian of sighs

the story of old kingdoms locked and barred.

these schoolrooms cannot carry light much less the one

into columns out of sight and the blackboards parry

but they cannot spell in colours upon colours

the way that we did once on butterscotched sidealks.

these kingdoms steal away the christmas snows;

the tinfoil crowns in the kindergarten plays and where

are the poems embroidered with Your suns and

all the hidden amber stored for another day

in the nectared histories of what could happen.

where are the words that could have been spun

like honey on bread. the curtains at the window;

the violets in her shawl where the winds blew

all the Springs away:

when music in you fled: small  rosebuds cried

without the colour "Red"

and penny valentine cardboards sifted

the hurricanes

mary angela douglas 13 january 2015;7 february 2015

The Sun On The Waters, The Heavenly Chime

"must the water rhyme with the sun," I wandered by

the streams that run humming to myself, "at the

end of every line?" because a friend had scorned

a slighted music in my mind. from heavenly harmony

a poet wrote so long ago yet green is the branch

when it comes to mind how can I help it if

my words chime like a hidden shining ladder strung

rung to rung within the lines like the water rhyming

with the sun? the rose that blossoms

into the colour: red each time

and still, astonishes

mary angela douglas 9 january 2015

For Poetry

everything she held in her hands turned to snows;
the starlight above diminishing where she had departed
no longer sacrosanct in the little villages of the world.

and the evergreens shed needles under the moonlight's
vast expanse and this was of her going; the trees weeping
what they could; the little clouds leaving, with her,
shod in her threadbare slippers of gold.

so diffident she had become, inured to Cold
and begging for crumbs from the new.
and in this vultured darkness some,

a lovely few-
wept for what was lost.

in the accounting systems of the world
who will account for this.
Beauty spurned from door to door

the citadels closed.
they will marshal
their armies of words

(the ones that they have left.)
and make new words, impossible to sing.
and numbness will spread and get all the prizes.

and curl the lip and the modern mien
as those of antiquity, the same, before us did:
scorning true music and the Soul.

it is still the same she wept into hands of snow
still.
not vanishing...

mary angela douglas 9 january 2015

The Starlight Leaves No Trace On Them I Think

the starlight leaves no trace on them I think
whenever I can't understand the words they say:
why are you saying this, this way and

what do you mean, really?
so fraught with gold and silver, I see
everything as if in a book of fairytales

I came to pass...
o no they cried and not alas! in school,
shaking their heads:

don't go into the woods today;
it's far too silver.
yet, I stayed, I don't know why

where every fairytale was decried;
the crown stripped from my head.

though it was pasteboard jeweled
with the coloured foils of endless candy wrappers saved-
still.
it was mine.

mary angela douglas 6 january 2015

Choosing Carefully A Career In Candy

could valentine cut outs folded end to end and paper chained
fill the chambers where the plans are laid?
I want to live in a Kingdom like that she declared

to no one listening under the stair.
let honey be thickly folded under bread
forever and ever the little cakes sprinkled with the sugar snows...

bring me a nickel's worth of mottoed hearts that no one knows
or wishing stars expired, on sale near the aisle of mysterious
chocolate bars and pastel marzipan and I will
make a career in candy as long as it lasts

she laughed and drank up all the orangeade
before there was even one customer
with a gold beaded, quenching glassful of it

mary angela douglas 5 january 2015

Sea Chant Going Under Near The Rose Streaked Piers

when I wash up on your shores ah Lord

may I not be mistaken for mere  sea glass

in birthday parties' pink and blue;
snatched by pirating angels.

o just a tangle of starfish,
perhaps they'll coo, while others kick the driftwood

drifting senselessly now on land
ah! with no crackjack prize in hand.

oh, may You recognize

when I cry out again for saltless water:

no lilac shell! where false words echoing echoed

calendar long by those mistaking sand

dollars for your Stars.

wherever you are I Am, you said:

may I Believe into whatever agony of a language they

translate me to:

this is your heart though I drown in the world

so many times I can no longer be taught to breathe
by anyone licensed. 

yet, I live- each time I sink,
 no matter how far under:

to seek, to find your clear, clear green

they cannot plunder.

mary angela douglas 5 january 2015;6 january 2015
Feast of the Epiphany

In A Tight Corner Lost At Work I Thought

in a tight corner lost at work I thought
 of meteors striking earth:

oh sweet reprieve and greatly to be desired more than

this subsisting in the honeycomb.

or suddenly, I thought, when scolded for what I failed to

bring to the table thinking it was already set:

may a small disaster come this way

and I will bring it pink bouquets and

whistle while I don't have to work

for those who think I cannot spell.

oh wishing well, where are you now?

I've got so much to tell you:
how the days gleam shorter and

the shadows loom or 15 term papers are due

on the same Tuesday, not to mention the outlines.

writing the outlines after the fact was all

I could ever do in the land where,
 even when I was widely ruled,

thoughts hit me randomly; the earth tilting only

slightly when the clock chimed early and pumpkin-rattled,
coach unglued, they told me

I was overdue and the crystal slipper didn't matter

mary angela douglas 5 january 2015

To The King Of Simple Words, Departed

[to Alexander Bell Sr., radiant Poet of  the simple words
and to his beloved family]

I'm Alexander, he said, a simple poet using simple words
the ones they've left behind. the stranded ones I thought
that glint like diamonds, a smile breaking into light a

rare handshake. compact, he was
an enemy of night, of bitterness,
meant to be such a glistening bird in a
tree of words that shone

and flitted from twig to twig as if it could always be
only daylight. how soon how soon to leave, whatever for?-
our slow and dawning comprehension that the light we show
in earnest conversation is the only light sometimes we know

on earth; down the colorless hallways cold or on
unfeeling streets in the deep freeze of words
not really meant, he blazed.

Alexander.a king's name, well deserved,
was struck from behind while
loading garbage on a city truck,  mid-morning on a Wednesday
in the City of the Arts

while the sun wept, didn't it? wouldn't it?
a week before Thanksgiving and another birthday sown.
in stable but serious condition the newsprint bled.
he lingered a week;then he was gone.

Linger in Heaven now where hard words
melt before the diamond furnace God keeps bright
for earth's, hard winter's saints.

o find your place in the house of poets,
house of the great who realized
that heartfelt words and unchained joys are best

well used until worn out
not only for Company reserved, for the festive occasion.
in the language of our sighs turned into summers. Rest.

compact and brief  may the grief of those who loved you
be, surely to meet you later, unafflicted, among the stars
and still intact and vital as the sun where you:

Shine On.

mary angela douglas 5 january 2015

The Things They Talk About Instead

"Wrecked is the ship of Pearl
and every chambered cell..."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Chambered Nautilus

the things they talk about instead

could madden even seraphim

the livelong day, on office breaks

or on the train.

the things they think

while continents of clouds

shift over them.

and in the nightingale hollows still

there is warbling, bittersweet

of who, oh who
will these technocracies appease
when all reality swirls into a screen?

 drop by drop the honey distills

the crimsoned trees unleaf and

still they gripe, they curse, and snipe

bedgrudge each other

for the clothes they wear
each owning imperially (they dream)the right to be right

the cars they drive

the mansions each one trendier

than the last with an inclusive emptiness.

still, fleeting are their gated worlds

though parquet floored in the vestibules

with all the amenities, golden fauceted.

oh you may knock on the rarest of woods

or on the noggin of Pinnochio

going forward into the wilderness

with your 5 year goals, your

concert interview readiness not to hear the music ever-

only to be seen against no proprietary backdrop of The End:

of rainbows plunging

violet-first, into the Sea...

mary angela douglas 3 january 2015

Never Forget That If They Want You For Their Play

never forget that if they want you for their play

they will use you as a prop.

be prepared to emulate furniture.

a throw rug or two.

at best, bright curtains in the wind.

engaging you in conversation,

one day you will understand

all your words

are pouring from their lips

gathering a small crowd.

live like the hermits did

on pillars in the wilderness

never speaking outloud.

write poems on the wings of birds.

mary angela douglas 3 january 2015

Writing Into The Sun We Wept In Gold

writing into the sun we wept in gold
and on the little sticky leaves the first buds
and were we the first to know

our words were going nowhere
beside the toy tracks, only scenery
the moveable bushes, tiny cottages

with the same pale roofs
who wait all day for the trains
to pass to catch the glimmer of the

toy lanterns pure enchantment.
working with the stones the builders cast aside
on our  mini cathedrals colored cellophane stained glass

our lady of the
perpetually closed exhibitions.

here's the latest scene in the play
where the paper bluebirds fly from her hands
in an imaginary wind

without actors, falling asleep under'
no one's snow will we awaken somewhere glistening else

and hear the heartbeats stifled here
in a Heaven of listening?

mary angela douglas 2 january 2015

To The Shimmering On The Clockcase Read By Moonlight

the shimmering on the clockcase read by moonlight shines

in a light apart, inlaid, divine, pastel impearled the little
birds, carved flowers, suns and moons together
in the ekies that won't

ever set and this is in the play house I imagine
at this late hour

set carefully and made to last by the cherry wood banister

of a staircase to the Far Kingdoms

where angels sail on pale pink tissue clouds and that's only

tne first act of the play.

the tea table's finely set, the china sprinkled with flowers

with pastel cakes to match and thickly frosted, too.

and in another room, larger than Space itself the book lined

majesties, the vellum fine, fine leathers, rainbow hued,

with moire end papers as in the famous advertisements

you could only afford to read and in the closet
of your favorite doll, brand new, the

handmade Diors stitched tinily iridescent
bead on bead on rare chiffons

in rose garden shades.

you don't dream small said a little sister drily
before she knew what drily meant

then ate up all the sherbet mints for the wedding party

merrily dressed in her Christmas

velvet: candy apple red

(and her crystalline pumps, she added)
while we sat in our pale blue room
on after school afternoons murmuring "roseate", "roseate"
our favorite word of the day that

still bears repeating...

mary angela douglas 1 january 2015

The Secret Language Of Elephants

THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF ELEPHANTS

[this poem was inspired by a beautiful report on CBS by Bob Simon entitled: The Secret Language of Elephants, reposted online December 28, 2014, it aired originally on CBS 60 Minutes January 1, 2010 and is an interview with the scientist
 Andrea Turkalo]

"But it turns out that these vocalizations are just a small fraction of the sounds elephants make. Until a few years ago, scientists had no idea that most of what elephants are saying can't be heard by the human ear."
-Bob Simon 

[an elegy...]

the ground rumbles but we can't hear it.

the small stars sing.

and every winged thing whirs in the grasslands

we can't learn to spell.

miles from each other, deep in the forest glades

beyond the storybooks we fell asleep reading-
sweet imprints of the childrens' hands
in Plaster-of-Paris adorning the trembling walls-

the elephants trumpet sotto voce and

understand each other.
this is not folklore.

the poets try, of all men left on earth;

the children, with their coloured clays and paints.

while all that we can't save or say
slips through to where

sad angels sing.
lost relatives call in rainbows
from the inside of shells...
the gilded saints break rank from silent prayer.

breaking their restraints, the elephants flood

the High Hills

while those of us,not yet attuned,

go under the Wave.

mary angela douglas 1 january 2015

Like The Astronaut On The Outside Of The Spaceship

how can we figure out a Mystery that we are in?

to figure it out, really, wouldn't we have to stand, somehow,

completely outside it all?

like the astronaut on the outside of the spaceship

called on to do repairs who floats like stars or nebulae

though he's still tethered-

and if not, still, he'll dissolve in

a Universe we can't find the limits of.

going indoors is no help at all,

even in the attics.

farther in is deeper still

down to the last trunk unpacked.

though we try on every costume

read over every vintage valentine

we find we're still stuck somehow

reading the Narrative line

while the Story's still going on, the ending

not yet clear

since we can't write it

mary angela douglas 1 january 2015

Evenings at Home In-Between The Floods

evenings at home, in-between the Floods.

I remember the tremulous lamplight, vanilla bright

spilling on the rugs such richness and the walls;

the coloured bulbs at Christmas and the revolving year.

the off-times, when we vacate the world

that shoved us into schoolrooms, office-work, or worse-

the latest styles or what we think we wore

while accustomed to the fragrance of the SuperMart;
the patio gardens. the days waning thin as
the frail tissue of the sewing patterns
we never mastered really.
the floraled shirtwaist schemes.

now more than ever the vividness returns

and seems, more real than it did then even down to

the hushed feelings- no clicks of the dialed black phone-

as Time, as they say, stood still:
a dab of perfume on its fairytale wrists

so that the evergreens are no longer distant,

the ones we played under.

the glazed porches.

let's go inside when our noses are like cherries
where the orange spiced pomanders abide,
the fluffy dog holiday sparkling:
all pom pom tailed, applause meter racing.

and where no ratios undermine
our peppermint dreaming;
where the carefully stenciled posters
winning no prize but

the freedom of finished homework hide and the

Cantique de Noel unwinds; all the wonders unwrapped.

and are there more when all this vanishing

comes to call, ringing the familiar doorbell?

stashed behind the Tree and silvery as the next Hill

the gifts that we forgot

are waiting still

mary angela douglas 1 january 2015

The Tulip Trees Remembered In Sudden Snow

the air is brushed with wings of

sudden gold and in the cold the pink-

lavender blossoms flare on the tulip trees

in an early unexpected spring I stood

before all wonders at an open door overlooking a quadrangle:

the snow filled up the flower cups and

is it all starry still and are we just beginning

even when we're old and will these blossoms

hold the concoctions of a change in the weather

delicately- if I could walk where I walked then,

again? Your colours trimmed the skies like

a window new fashioned what are all these flowers for

if not to understand You laid all Beauty at our feet

and now, as Then: before the first worlds, Speaking

it into Light

mary angela douglas 1 january 2015