EPIPHANY OF THE WHITE APPLES

fr Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam
to the music of Messian's Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus

I don't know why white apples in the frost

seem suddenly to sob;

reading Mandelstam three in the morning,

I dreamt of God, His marred meridians and pearl;

upwards where the gnats swirl angelically

lighter than the air they almost dwell in;alighting on

the purple lines dividing these geographies, my dusks,

may clouds float, swanlike then, bright dust,
in the ballet cirrus of Akhmatova

in an in-between time. I try to rhyme

Him with something else, deeply felt

but it's too cold

where after decades throw an arced lights’ lost and emerald shine

as if they know

this Neva is not mine.

and who am I

to make my petitions here

on the other side of the world, the room, I fear

assorted people will not believe

I do love Russian poetry;

where the moon is made of glass.

will it shatter at last? will I

the milk bright pieces hold in a wounded perigee

I ask like a child from a hand towel embroidered

folk tale. not my own.

God knows I’m bound up in the story though

I won't turn and become salt...if that’s your worry

“it's not your past”, a thin murmuring grows,

how do you know I plead to no one heeding me

what words came to me in a midnight hour

and laid down their shields

or that the blanched petals fleet so lingeringly by me

on this heavy darkness, sown

as an antique honey, scarcely bottled.

I don't know why

white apples in the frost...

made me cry unto the light vexed distances:

sheared seraphim may guard the long scars

lightly felt now, the buzz of

summer flies; soul freedom's reedy tunes so

lemon starred.

no longer die. oh live jewel jangled as

Christmas hymns to the infant Jesus should be.

one candle grown lilac in a perpetual Spring

precariously I perch among worlds and

So.

they sigh, it's you again and

won't even let me in

for the dress ball, seemingly less than Cinderella,

packing one useless shoe

I’ll look within

wandering down Mandelstam Avenue,

a quarter note's brimmed with wonders and

remote viewing as through a screen of ancient snows, all

things being foreign, suddenly parted

on a mysterious stage, oh Star, my star

where I, unaccountably, not knowing where You are

but in a blinding Grace

have all the parts by heart.

mary angela douglas 10 september 2016/3 january 2019;24 june 2019

I Know You Will

I know You will catch me whenever I fall
into the nets of Your delicate provision
whenever I envision

the world as it was before.
before when you were dreaming
of the colour green

of the canopies of trees and clouds.
before You said one word of leaves, aloud
when Light was a thing unseen.

and wished for, by the angels.

I will remember with You
the notebooks on birdsong
please

going back to those scenes:
Eden before the ruin.
looking for mushrooms

and the tiniest flowers
spellbound for hours
in the green shadows.

in the plum's purest stain.
the benison of rains;
Orion.

mary angela dougla 22 june 2019

CHOOSE

To Ilya and Emilia Kabakov

we'll skate on the wind if all else fails
and bring the stars back in pails
so they won't glaze over

saving the orange groves, too

building the Spring from mementos
oh, all the fading blossoms lest
they fade from memory too

they will say we are negligent
not attending to present business
unaware, fiscally unsound

but there is a crystal stair in every poem
or installation, Kabakovs proved.
others, too.

we can go up them if we choose

or we can stay here.
in a cloying weariness, wilderness bonded.

mary angela douglas 22 june 2019

Peppermint Stick Revue

we were going to wear flowerdy dresses all the time
all the time
when we grew up

and rhinestone necklaces
every bit as good as diamonds
we reasoned back then

when we were almost twins
because, on special occasions
our Grandmother dressed us that way

we could play the day away
and under moonlight too
make up stories if they would have let us

do that.
we just crammed more in to the next day.
now I think

you know, that's not a bad way to live
as I smooth my flowerdy dress down
and eat more ice cream

than you could shake a peppermint stick at.

mary angela douglas 21 june 2019

Cloud Song To William Blake

don't be afraid walking on waters
a small voice chimed
perhaps from a charming cloud

as painted by Blake
seen walking on the Thames
and singing brilliant hymns

when the not so sanguine tygers
burned in the night.
is it indelible I said?

hoping it was so.
all those illuminations,
long ago.

and the angels blurred in trees
in watercolours, please.
oh all of these and the sick rose healed

and all that we can feel

when dreaming of his pastorales
and the New Jerusalem.

mary angela douglas 21 june 2019

Make It Turn Out That Way

it should have been the letter to the king
I dropped in the tisket or tasket
in the green and yellow basket

in the thrush bright spring
with seven kinds of sealing wax
banded with gemmy rainbows

buttercups, someone said
under the chin.

and someone would have found it
wrapped it up in tissue
and sent it on right then

because we dreamed it that way
everytime we were swinging into the clouds
and Grandmother said, come in girls,

it's going to rain.
then we were going to live in a house
with rose patterned wallpaper

and a thin green stripe
another of pure silver on each panel.
but the letter wasn't delivered.

I dont know what happened that day.
call it fate, an unsatisfactory story.
but we still dream of glory;

morning glory, stay

and in the retelling,
make it all turn out that way.

mary angela douglas 20 june 2019

Confused, Tangled With Starlight

{to Jesus, the Light of the World]

did the dark illumine the corners where you were
confused, tangled with starlight
no longer sure of its demesne

how could it remain the same
in the presence of true Light
perhaps the Magi wondered

in their flight from Herod
warned in dream.
it takes centuries to gleam

what else did Rembrandt mean by mingling
dark with light so that it seemed
alchemical, all of it, gold

waiting to be born.gold petticoat showing through
the funereal.

Light shines the scripture says
in darkness
darkness does not understand

why suddenly

it is embroidered with marigolds
and the children are singing it hymns.

mary angela douglas 20 june 2019

Sadness Comes In Waves I Said

sadness comes in waves I said
they closed the door
leaving me to wander near the shore

of it
captive to the day of writing me off
like a bad debt.

they did not care that the ebb and the flow of it
seeped under their door, and marled, and beautiful
as disastrous

pooled in the well waxed hallways, lapped at the balconies'
recreational edge.
my pledge I have kept

windswept

ridiculed, words skewed slightly sideways
by the knowing smiles.
I dont know what they know.

or how they tally up the miles.

God keep me safe.
under no bitter moonlight  nor escape.
unmined. with no resort but You

oblivious to the time we live in
they think they've wasted with me.
in the palace of your mercies,

with my small candle lit.

and Infinite.

mary angela douglas 18 june 2019

Who Keeps Singing It

13th Reflection on Kabakov

the things you had learned
while whirring among the stars
as if in a landscape by Dore

Dante's Dore commit to a piece of paper
in the teeth of such a wind
you may later, said the angel

the one with furry wings
the one that held your gaze
and splintered in Cezanne

precisely the blues from the greens
it isnt sequestered really
where you live

expounding the clouds
making up small messages to send
welcoming the white winged things forlorn

into the winter corners on the canvas

let words fall like glass
on a stage of permanent stars
the mirror image reversed

so that we walk on skies
and have for a roof, the earth


the paper torn
in the teeth of such a wind
begin with small crayons...

in an abandoned field
someone has tossed golden apples almost everywhere
only I don't know who

keeps singing it, this way
so that I continue hearing
the music without the words

the petaling ones free falling
from the far balconies.

mary angela douglas 18 june 2019

Three Birds Arose In A Rose Dawn

three birds arose in a rose dawn
and I looked on, their summer witness
as in an alternate history, dreamed;

perhaps the only one to think
are we on the brink of something rubied in the world
a cusp of gold, and sonar on the wind

never to see it, hear it again, to feel in a velvet course
with the selfsame feeling, with hidden words conveyed
their flight, and flickering

I saw from my particular starting gate in life, thus far,
a certain way I could not replicate now
and in a green wondering, wondered

as if in a wood on the first page of the tale

were they the presage or the message itself;
how could I know that day were they boon or blight
or for that instant only, in a never repeating Universe,

more than Light itself

mary angela douglas 17 june 2019

Upon Their Banished Names

for Thomas Graves

folded down and no one's now
the poets oh of no renown to you.
why do we bury them again...

vow to vow and each to keep
I mourn their prolonged winter sleep
their springtime tread

upon the pages that I read
only decades ago.
so decreed the powers that be

the assumed, so assuming literati

that they should become no reverie even.
in season or out jeered by those with clout.
even our Shakespeare conscripted

to serve, the propagandist's lack of verve.
still, not for me their soul's lost foam and the long retreat.
sad vigil I will keep with Whitman, Poe

Dickinson, the best to know.
Keats and Shelley bright as beams
upon the unresting, forlorn seas

no more, the ships of gold.
oh find their valentines again
I whispered to a modern wind, an age

that stole what e'er they knew and trashed it
academic room to room.
think that you shall find again

in purple ink, such hearts to win

you know it isn't true.
languid at the cafes, parlez vous
anything but shame, riotous laughter

upon their banished names.
reclaimed.

mary angela douglas june 14, 2019

Some Summer

we'll go spend every pirate coin at the carnival

and then come home to tea

with little pink cakes

how would that be

we spoke to the empty cupboards for her sake

willing them to become

suddenly magical, all twinkly

and fling themselves open to reveal

pink cakes and more

apple core Baltimore

jingle bell time

and one shaded moment

for the wild violet surmise

we feel, while on appeal.

oh close the screen door

cause they all want to be

the one and the only

queen of the white honey

they only come to steal

and the causeways brimming

with gipsies...can't you just feel it...

or skate on moonlight, plum dusted

who is there to stop you

in the carport

at least in dreams with their bicycle bells

and the evening in violet seams

comes down

it all comes down

in blue taffeta.

still needing to be hemmed

said Grandmother, magical Grandmother.

her mouth all full of pins.

mary angela douglas 12 june 2019

The Last Word That You Said

I dreamed that poetry was the last word that you said
the one that had broken off, broken off starlight and
fallen by the road

and it had taken root where no one knew
and broken into bloom
and had become a vast tree

some said the tree of night made more beautiful
with the moon behind clouds and moonlight, then,
imagined.

moonlight then imagined it was poetry too
as there were no singers left who would sing that
when called upon to sing

in storerooms where the dead arts are kept, 
in the attics of beauty long neglected
where children go to play

when it rains, when they are disconsolate,
to discover they still can wear it
though it doesn't fit them yet:

moonlight, the yard, and the blossoming blossoming Tree.

mary angela douglas 12 june 2019

CANTICLE FOR ROBIN WILLIAMS (revised June 10 2019)

CANTICLE FOR ROBIN WILLIAMS

[for Robin Williams (July 21, 1951-August 11, 2014)

"Nought but vast sorrow was there -- 
The sweet cheat gone"

-from Ghost, by Walter De La Mare

dreaming in colour with our eyes wide open
we thought we heard them say that you had fled
oh no oh no oh no we cried we cried we cried

the fool in motley wiser than all kings is dead
by his own hand and we the starless witnesses of the news
and snows bled snows in summer, shock by shock

in California, spreading clockwise fault line by
fault line: can't you make it disappear, sad conjurer,
dear robin, making amends?

but this, this the thing that can't be mended
by a sudden sortie of your hidden angels
fraught with the tinkling of bells on the jester's

cap no more, though doffed and doffed again, to us, before
as if we were royalty in a velvet box
convulsed with happiness; zig-zagging

lightening quick, mercurial, ariel ariel
why, what- is this?
last seen at 10 p.m. on sunday night, and at home..

(yet not at home)
and the fairytale
decreed with its happy ending:

let it be 10 p.m. on a sunday always-
didn't it? or earth, earth has skipped its heartbeat;
honey ceased its sweetness,

captain crossing now, crossing the ragged line-
never coming back this time cross

rainbowed meridians, scarves pulled out of the hats
as if from the borealis, wonderful! and multifaceted,
the doves of extravagant wit flew up from the silk top

hats towards what, towards whom,
towards when you're
jumping off the shortest cliff of all, o Lear, come back
come come back they must be wrong...

the laugh lines in the moons of distant planets dim-
oh were you Hamlet in the end, mad Lear-
the one we thought we knew send not to know

to know to know for whom the bell has tolled
has tolled has tolled has laughter ceased
and music spilling from the soul oh jigsaw piece

my favorite one! exclaimed the child in us
all unconsoled:
is merriment weeping unregaled?

ah, Genie, out of the bottle now, murmured
the Academy.
o tenderest of clowns

we will not find you though
the puzzle's strange without you
fretting upon no stage at all that we can see.

the hour was golden, seized,
but it has raveled,these, our revels...

dies, laughter on the lips of God for
this brief shining,
now

mary angela douglas 12 august 2014;10 june 2019

SONG FOR THE LAST INTERVIEW (VERSION OF JUNE 10 2019)

'it will flame out like shining from shook foil'

-Gerard Manley Hopkins

(for Dr. Robert Joseph Connelly, UIW, San Antonio, in memoriam)

this is for the Word made whole
for the poetry-riven skies
for the strength to recognize a lie

for the breakable language
unbroken still
by the bent word

built for profit,
not for truth.

this is my sigh in the flowering
air for the glass blown disappearing act of
stars in the May apple regions

appearing,
disarming, chiming in the winds
that only angels bring

the pause (finally, in excoriating speech,
-your very own-)
where you collect yourself
if not your things

from one last day at work
or home
picking your report card up

in June from the ghost school;
for the ghosts of
cornbread heirlooms

dripping with the honeycomb;
for afternoons of strawberries
and cream -

for the Holy Ghost dressed in pale green
for the whole world seen
through stereoscopic Disney,

Christmas stenciled windows;
the least view of small
pink flowers bordering the sidewalk

goodbye...this is for God
who hears and sees the
honey tinged questions'
finding fault

so that permanent records
continue to reflect
your waywardness in

never having the exact
amount of change
this is for the second you feel

you have to leave with no reprieve
the childhood home, the iced teas
so much earlier than you dreamed

with only three dresses packed
in a
walnut, the Lord's prayer on a dime:

fixing the hall clock in your memory
the jelly glasses
and the willow-ware, the brightness of pennies

over other denominations...the sherbets, lime
the even times;
repairing your chiffon shadow

on the way with your personal sewing kit

to honor those who raised you
and read you fairy tales
as though from great distances.

this is for
no safe-houses on the horizon
least of all the yellow brick one

across the street
where children climb trees heedlessly
and eat the whole summer

an entire orchard of homemade
peach ice cream...
this is for the deep-starred journey

undertaken
for the fools' errands-
for the straw that will never

everland turn into gold
no matter how the Rumplestiltskins scold

listen to me:
questionable friends
make the journey a million times

harder and give you the wrong
directions to the castle so
that you never find

the singing bird.
this is for trudging on alone
for crossing the borders on your own

not looking back even when
the person who packed to come with you
changes their mind at sunrise

then runs to tell on you
like we were back in school

this is for living
like the silence on the moon
and soon and soon

far from the living room

you will withdraw from a tiny shell
at the exact right moment in the interview, a
shining like shook foil shaken-

three dresses of compressible splendor
kept against the rain and
wrapped in violet tissue:

the one of vivid stars
the one of ornate flame
the one of cloudless cloudless blue

and, as if on cue, the opal angels move-
scattering the inquisitors;
settling old accounts

in scripts of gold
with not one scintilla of
asking anyone for permission.

for you were watched over
even while crocodiles wept
my child my child at

every nightmare's exit

by the Word unbroken:
by music heard in the wake of angels,
by undetainable Light...

mary angela douglas revision of june 10, 2019

Turning Pink Hydrangeas Blue Or Vice Versa

turning pink hydrangeas blue the newspaper caption read,
depending on the soil (it said)..., but in my head a childhood quandry solved for once and all

when my sister and I running out of things to do

that summer pondered the question, philosophically too:
always the pink or blue, the dress, the velvet shoe,
the ribbon in your hair

which o which to wear
that was the summer of Disney's Sleeping Beauty
remember when the seats were plush velvet

and air conditioned cool the downtown theatre in humid Arkansas
the popcorn strewn, the real Coke syryp over ice
and expectation grew

preceded by cartoons,the Main Feature...

the fairies could not decide either!
and so, they concluded
both are best

and kept turning the dress
from blue to pink
from pink to blue

you know the rest

while she was dancing
Aurora woken from dreams.
and still it seems to me

the best solution
the pink titration or the blue
depends on whom you're talking to

perhaps a little tinted by the mood you're in
don't have to see the competition through
when blue can be changed to pink

and pink to blue. in a twinkling
whenever there is magic in your thinking.

mary angela douglas 8 june 2019

The Island Of Floating Away

it's an island and it's floating away

that Blessed Isle

who could dismiss that childhood

I knew judges that did.

but what map from school could receive it now

retrieved from chalk dust days or their

hereafters at home

I don't remember.

just fractions of things.

pennies on tables. apples added together,

an alphabet of gold

and it was mine

amid rings of glass, the green or the amethyst

and after class the wind through the trees

thinking of these, the music of Debussy;

kingdoms keeping company with clouds.

Green Ginger is the name of that land

the storybook said

you can't call it on your own.

it comes and goes

but not on command.

and then sets down.

alight, for the night is coming

and the Wave

alight.

it has come to save you

and the peach sun.

your favorite one to draw.

mary angela douglas 8 june 2019

Incident On A Train

I take you out of my pocket on the train
carefully 
and you shake off the rain

because this raincoat isn't waterproof
and fling the droplets all over the place
while I pray please Lord of the emerald bird

the topaz eyes, or of the sapphire, growing wise
you, in your rubiness please
make my bird, invisible

and I see the prayer has worked to set up
an invisible screen, kind of a Chinese one
with miniature dragons, thread jeweled suns

so that I and my pet will not be seen
and more to the point, not charged a fee.
here we are. the landscapes rolling by

the washlines with their wash to dry

in all the pastels. small children with their mouths agape
too stunned to wave...
but birdie wants some brunch,

and I'm not sure what's on the menu

for a firebird even a resplendent small one
or will have I have to feed it, sigh,
just poetry drafts again. old maps

a few saltines.
pimento cheese.
raspberry Canada Dry.

mary angela douglas 8 june 2019

Waiting

tonight I think of waiting.

everyone waits.
I wonder, did He wait too

long ago, when the world was new
for the seed to become a star
to illuminate

a pomegranate darkness
did he watch ferns and shade them with his hand
and place them near trees once they had full shade

was everything made from His waiting
even the peacock fan
all waiting was Love in Him.

somehow we could not wait enough
and so, we packed it in and left Eden.
and now everyone waits. for something.

parents wait for the dawn
hoping their children will live on
prisoners wait for their parole

or wonder, how can I grow old
behind bars
babies wait to be picked up

spinsters for the street car
sleepy children for the end of the story

refugees wait between lands
oh how can they
and many wait for sustenance

in vain. for anyone to call them by their name
not from an agency.
to be safe again in their own homes.

for the war to end.
and long to begin again.

so many wait alone and pray
their pain will not be great
when angels come to the gate

when finally they depart

and all, all wait with a broken heart
that was in my dream...
afraid that the boat of Heaven

will leave without them
some shortlisted year
that no one will know
they were ever even here.

mary angela douglas 7 june 2019

Deuteronomy 31:8 It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

Baby Doll's Silver Tap Shoe Song

(To all the Tin Pan Alley Songwriters of the Past)

I've got jelly bean gumption
candy consumption, on the brain
you think I'm the worst bumpkin

out in the rain

though I'm so chocolate cherry
you din, not so very
but I don't care what you think
cause I know I'm on the brink

of fame fame fame

I'm all peacock feather
you may say never
I say why

You think I don't know whether
birds can fly
but I don't care what you think

cause I know Im on the brink
of technicolor, there's no other, fame o fame

you think I am a silly
and Im worth nilly
passing me by

I think Im worth a million
maybe capillion
don't ask me why

cause I dont care what you think
when I dream I'm on the brink
of fame o fame o 

Christmas stocking, Interlochen,
no more hocking
fame fame fame.

mary angela douglas 3 june 2019