What Can I Do But Praise You, Father Of Light

still I will praise Your irrepressible Light

that streams unseen in the galaxies within the most petulant night

and on the underside of leaves, in the least living thing even in

stone and geode where the amethyst is revealed

in everything I think and feel

lining the dreams I cannot relinquish even in my latter days

or cede to any man, philosophy, circumstance at hand

that runs counter, seeking only devastation.

Blessed Eternal Candlelight never going out

nor quenched in the drizzle of the incessant vagaries of public

opinion;

posers striving to be perpetually in despair

I see the overflow of beauty everywhere

what can I do but praise?

mary angela douglas 23 august 2021

1Mary Angela Douglas

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Song for a Radiant Atheist

we cannot sleep for the brightness

of our nostalgia for God

which we cannot quench 

extinguish burn out of ourselves or quell well

and so we are still his moths

translucent so that the silver of his

unabating love for us shows through

in unexpected radiances of thought or speech

or in our silence before the immeasurable.

what were all those illuminations for

in early childhood 

catching a vagrant star or two

out of the corner of a tearful eye

soon we will sleep the rest that comes to all.

this makes you weep.

why will you not still seek him

he is near.

mary angela douglas 22 august 2021

Round Trip With Emeralds

in your summer versions of the yellow brick road

you don't anticipate the snow among the poppy fields

that kind of deliverance

that it may be necessary

to work the will as a not so oiled machine

in service of the heart that's barely learned to tick

oh let us be wicks together in the emerald world

lit by the grand imagination of a storm induced dream

and gleam ourselves in the finale as though we were citadels

of the light putting the witches of despondency to flight

in favor of the beautiful, the beckoning that we have slowly, circuitously learned

is the endless return to ourselves

we must be shown; braced for the unexpected departures

in trepidation and in grace,

through this strange round trip toward Home

that nothing was ever wasted.and that we were not alone.

mary angela douglas 21 august 2021

Landscape With Urban Clouds

urban clouds float over the city landscape

haha. no one ever heard of urban clouds

clouds don't really have to have a known address

clouds are freer that way than us not to get on the bus

not to report in to a job their job is drifting on

no one to tell them anything about where and when

to flame magenta above the broken glass

though sometimes the wind has something to say in the matter

when raindrops start to spatter

in the painting perhaps it could be said 

or at least the title read: Urban Clouds Over the City Square"

if it weren't for that really pastel pink tinge  and a certain 

savoir 

faire 

and a ripple of gold and peach richer than anywhere.

mary angela douglas 17 august 2021

In The Fair Kingdoms, Fast Asleep

(second poem in the sequence entitled "Children As They Sleep")

is it some mystically bright promontory

you will find forgotten in a modern age

recalled on a green morning so hazy by the lake

you must have dreamed it your covers all askew

while moonlight looked in on you

or you were the pirate of the ship

that sorted all the gold in the sun

or the one who sang Land ho

from your aqua green perch

or would they ever find you again

the way that you were then

so whimsically alert to every ripple in the air

in the fair kingdoms 

making the repairs.

mary angela douglas 17 august 2021

The Fins Flash Silver But Some Flash Gold

(first in a sequence of poems entitled 'Children As They Sleep)

the fins flash silver 

but some flash gold

then suddenly, emerald,

amethyst will these be the mermaids

of which she was told in fragments of poems

in storybooks she wonders

half drowning in her sleep

do they have combs of pearl

do they really sit on the rocks and sing

and what is that music light

but now the daylight fades in the skies

and she has no more wondering left

its used up

like a milky latticed shell upon the beach

whose creature wandered away

the child's body sleeps wrapped in coverlets of cloud

her soul shining under the waters...

mary angela douglas 16 august 2021

Summer Poem In Chlorine Blue

who cares if I splash around in the baby pool of the English language

I have fun there

even as a so-called grown up

I don't have to go into the deep end of the pool

and anyway, I can't

being a poor swimmer at best

no need to dive off 

showing off in front of the others

lounging around the pool.

mary angela douglas 16 august 2021

Augury In August

under the breadth of the starry skies

the milk bright pillages of the moon

I write my heart out and am blithe

in this new forged: my summer's, noon.

after long rains in dazzled woods

the soul fed greenery remains

undaunted as the night draws on

imperial as the Kingdom come

under the rainbow's fragile bend

the ancient wounds will start to mend

the winter find its spring again

the winter find its spring- again.

mary angela douglas 15 august 2021

Reading

in the book I am blossoming again

as if I could see through words as through a

transparent green pear coloured;

on the inside I am gold and flecked in a radiance

not quite glimpsed on earth

can I wonder so as if this expanse were mine

this realm of pages dusted with a strange sugar snow

that I have come to know then to forget and

recognize again

in the book I am blossoming

as though I will never end

and I know that this is so

beyond any radiance not quite found on earth...

mary angela douglas 14 august 2021

For Amy Lowell, For Her poem "Opal"

I live.

mistranslating thunderclaps in the garden.

shunned in another language again,

stumbling over words.

yet I know

some of them are pearl

and some of them are snow.

mary angela douglas 11 august 2021

The Next To The Last Page In The Book

the next to the last page in the book

the fireworks came out of hiding

they embroidered rose petals full and shining

on the night air, the jeweled rose leaves

and we said we cannot leave earth now

it has become too beautiful

we will call our souls back

and it will be as before.

when we were little and had pink sashes.

we were the main characters

though it never seemed that way at the time

suddenly we saw it for what it was:

the whole story

the jolts on the King's Highway

the main bridges washing out

on the way to work

whole towns deserted.

my life as a fool.

what will the heroine do we said

tears streaming over the darkening page

the Sun's gold clearing it all away...

just in time

for the Matinee.

mary angela douglas 11 august 2021

To My Sister In The Blue Dusk Of Time

I can't remember the rules for "jacks"

just the way they spun out on the summer porch

and sparkled and sprawled as if we'd thrown the constellations

into new patterns in broad daylight so that the dog barked

excitedly

at our astronomy society

but I clearly remember the green, the yellow thumbtacks

in the kitchen drawer, their jonquil shades, the cork bulletin board

and potholders made on a toy loom exclaimed over

and how the cherry red ball bounced so high concrete snapped

and all that clover

which way does memory lie to cling to some things

yet not others I'll have to ask Grandmother perhaps

a blue dusked child still sighs

what shall we do with such artifacts

if we went out on the lawns at nightfall

lo so many evenings later

would the dews still appear to us as

diamonds? the moon in striking topaz

dropping down into the mimosa trees,

slipped off its necklace?

mary angela douglas 11 august 2021

ngela Douglas

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Spirograph

(for Percy Bysshe Shelley)

into a cloud as into an azure shining fly

careening into a star that's dying 

into an orchid mist declaiming this

my muted birds

beyond immortal tree lines

spiraling

daunting in pearl edged mists dissolving

turning in the winds on the last blade of light.

before, before the songless nights.

mary angela douglas 11 august 2021

From A Glass Sky

we'll rake the stars up in a heap

that fell when we were fast asleep

and paint new rings around the sun

in pleated colours when we're done

we'll keep on growing year to year

and cherish all the hemispheres.

the scent of grass that disappears

the soul that migrates far from here.

mary angela douglas 9 august 2021

Silver On The Stones

people may be envious in every language:

how to be the first to translate the moon

perhaps, they fume.

the moon floats on above ambition

silver on the stones

to lead the children home.

mary angela douglas 9 august 2021

Foreign

I have wandered all day in a foreign dream

now I am tired and I have misplaced the way

looking for an old address in purple ink and on a skein of sorrow

and they say I'm the wrong country to feel this way

I feel this way today and tomorrow

I believed in the pale green litanies of leaves

in the silence of clouds as they drift changing scenes

the unexpected rubies in the clouds, the amber seams of

the trees though I am among  these only a pale mirror yet am I real

even in a foreign dream even speaking the language poorly

even though they look at me as the typical GNP, tourist, simpleton

because I am from America and shouldnt know any better

should not have these complicated thoughts like an ancient music

but its from the old fairytales I learned to spell

and I learned them

very well

to believe in the pale green litanies of leaves

God turning the pages of the book of trees

I am in all of these but you regard me never

because I have wandered in a foreign dream all day 

and sewn in the dim glass the parting of the waves

and night is coming on at last and the moon in opal dredging up the 

past

when God will take me in his measuring glass and understand 

everything.

mary angela douglas 8 august 2021

This Lemon Bar Of Sunlight

this lemon bar of sunlight cutting across my strawberry rug

in the present day as if to say something concise some distinct irrevocable message

relayed what is it

in perfect diagonal displayed

among the woven strawberry vines

like some kind of annunciation in this summertime, mislaid

so that I must pause and look at it in wonder

and ask of whoever may be listening

is this possible

can light from a long ago day visit us again

I swear that same ray fell upon a childhood rug

with roses woven in the same oval way

while I spoke with my Grandmother after school one day

as we sipped on Cokes and she told me again

not in so many words as in the trilling of the bird

outside her window

how she couldnt understand she would never understand

the death of her young husband at 29.

her eyes grieving in that familiar way.

seem still so brimmed with unshed tears

to me, today.

mary angela douglas 7 august 2021

1Mary Angela Douglas

This Lemon Bar Of Sunlight

this lemon bar of sunlight cutting across my strawberry rug

in the present day as if to say something concise some

distinct irrevocable message

relayed what is it

in perfect diagonal displayed

among the woven strawberry vines

like some kind of annunciation in this summertime

so that I must pause and look at in wonder

and ask of whoever may be listening

is this possible

can light from a long ago day visit us again

I swear that same ray fell upon a childhood rug

with roses woven in the same oval way

while I spoke with my Grandmother after school one day

as we sipped on Cokes and she told me again

how she couldnt understand she would never understand

the death of her young husband.

her eyes grieving in  that familiar way.

mary angela douglas 7 august 2021

His Famous Children Laud His More Resounding Fame

His famous children

we all are since He has written our names in his bright book

His celebrities

let's all wear sunglasses like the ones

we got in the five and dime

when we were nine

and hold hands around the fountains

in the plazas wherever they are

and dance and be ringed with roses

and say how happy we are that we are cherished

by such a famous God who richly made the stars

and all the good we are.

mary angela douglas 5 august 2021

To Rainer Maria Rilke, Again

to say the things that have no end

was granted you that they could be

wrapped in rose leaves by your friends

all those rampart riven nights you felt the

fissure of birdsong in your soul and sudden angels

or how a stroll on an autumn avenue alone

with the spectres of leaves whirling

seemed like a stroll into Infinity you composed

transfiguring as if language were your sky the interior meanings

the planets over the sleeping towns.

how can we know the things you knew this time around

in a far century too

any other way than to read the Duino Elegies

in a midnight hour

to gather up things to say when the violins

have all gone silent in this world in the way they sang to you:

the lexicon of beauty missing its key note.

mary angela douglas 5 august 2021

Yum

oh cream sicle dream sicle

Howard Johnson's lemon twist moon

I could eat you with a crystal spoon

a strawberry tune a summer coupon

in a limeade swoon

Coke float bank note come home soon

cherry berry everything 

yum is coming soon.

mary angela douglas 5 august 2021

Not In Praise Of Ambiguity

to say and not to say some think of as an art

but I can't feel that way

either you express clearly and with an unalterable heart

or you seem to be shuffling cards and in love with your

ability to make things hard, clear yet unclear, even ironic

possibly, negligent.

who wants to hear such music, I would rather listen to clouds

noiseless in the wind they drift but they can 

never pretend because they depend on the wind on the God

that made them so and I know that I know that I know

it isn't art it's heartlessness to make people suffer by always leaving them

in uncertainty, in the dark or with the shades half drawn

and lost in the dark blue folds of the day.

mary angela douglas 5 august 2021

Anthems

(to my Grandparents, in the singing of hymns remembered)

clinging onto the golden hymns and the silver

the amber ones of the first autumns the green and yellow

jonquil hymns the hymns of Easter April appareled

and in December the Christmas carols holding onto music

in this way I remember you my guardians on the way

of childhood, all the guardian loves and how the house was full

at the full then and singing as light and bright and in

reveries half lights

and the evening hymns, the hymns of the white dawns

windows streaked with tears of rain or frost and going out again

learning to let go to be far from the glow of home as

first remembered

in the singing of hymns, the amethyst slow and stately

the folding down

of the griefs in the flower beds and the moon

watching me as I went away

not knowing I was leaving you too except for all that

singing and the glowworm stars

oh where, where are you now as if I could bring you lilies and it would be spring again

in the blue promise of the spring, and summer following then,

the zinnias planted and

the church filled singing the Sunday noons and the rest of the week

stretching before freshly starched and pressed and

put away for so long

now that hearing the old hymns I weep and remember you all.

mary angela douglas 4 august 2021

A Prophecy Over The Small Child On The Swingset

you will translate the translucent into the opaque

poster paint blue tears will rise from acquiescing seas

you will acquaint yourself with no miseries

despite the prevailing culture

and paint the sun on the underside of midnight

pealing the bells that long have not been rung

because in you resides a Resident Light

that cannot be quenched even should all tears rise

at once and all the galaxies be drowned.

mary angela douglas 4 august 2021

Reading The Tea Leaves For Injust Justice

ringmasters dwindle.

reselling their cotton candy lies

in the name of fruitless enterprise

and I'll steer clear, watching it disappear

not counting on circuses year to year

I'll light the candles anyway

and pray and pray

somewhere light shines.

it isn't here.

mary angela douglas 4 august 2021

With A Single Thorn

some flowers when they're touched evince a bruise

I learned from my Grandmother placing the magnolia bloom

in the silver bowl

some flowers bruise;be careful

sometimes the soul retracts its starry rays

beyond a thing that I can say to make it not so

into the rainbowed, weeping world we go

with small defenses

aren't we all flowers armed with our pretenses

till the path we tread and we ourselves are worn;

threadbare, our cloth of gold

like  St. Exupery's rose

who thought herself well guarded

with a single thorn

mary angela douglas 2 august 2021