Making The Meeting On How Not To Save The Drowning

drowning people are not supposed to show up

at the hush hush meetings on dry land I mean

it's just not DONE for sure they never got the flyer

nobody wanted them to come

I mean, after all who wants somebody dripping with

seaweed in their parlour

even if it is all just on zoom

and even if the whole meeting is on

how Not to help the drowning.

but to just continue talking about

how to make it look like you are.

the fact that you managed to make the meeting

by chewing the rusty anchor off that was pinning you

down on the ocean floor in your sheer determination

to make it on time doesn't count for anything with them my friend

you won't even get a cupcake in the end.

mary angela douglas 21 october 2021;24 october 2021

1Mary Angela Douglas

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In Eden

hearing was like the flutter of doves

speaking like singing the wind through the grasses

or the high stars, chaparral,

the scuttle of foam on seas

and poetry what was poetry then

but all the light

as far as the heart could see

no impediment.

birdsong at rest or cresting the rainbow permanence

we were heirs to then

we were there

though to you it may not seem so

thinking we are the brides of an incontrovertible ignorance.

we were there we remember it the glance of emeralds at dawn

from every rose capped lawn

though with an insouciant rumbling

the world would drown out the slightest gleam in us now

we still go on living there

somehow: in every fugitive dream.

mary angela douglas 21 october 2021

The Days Right After

the snow leafed tree was transfixed in the wind

while we kept weeping under a leaden sky

Christ will never turn these stones to bread

there doesn't have to be a reason why

the snow leafed tree is bruised now by the cold

and keeps the memories of a thousand Springs

deep within its bole of gold

so we hold on to the Living Stream

though Christ can't turn these stones to bread

by some few loaves he kept us fed

and by small fish that silver gleamed

when he was larger than all dreams.

mary angela douglas 21 october 2021

Translations

(to Hans Christian Andersen)

she says "teardrop"

which translates "earring'

or the slip of a moon

left behind to shine

to waver with the lustre of pearl

in the dimming evening

what are words anyway

compared with the brilliance

of stars clouded over

the eye of the nightingale

ruby in its setting

the Emperor, breaking down.

mary angela douglas 21 october 2021

Narrow Escape

this morning's moon is still in the sky

oh what shall I do for it, father said I

what ill will befall

what doomsday is here

and I with a wedding dress

made out of fear

or Christmas is coming again this year

in a far off country away from here

father my father

and dear

what is the portent where is the trail

that I may traverse it

should all else fail

the map to decipher

the clue in the case

the jewel in the offing

the whole human race

the moon of this morning is still in the sky

but this was a dream

not a real cause to fly

to flee and to float

to cross not the moat

to abandon the silver

and hide, in the reeds.

mary angela douglas october 19 2021

But Still Gold

my hearth was swept in the poem

the teakettle branching cinnamon

rasped, an aspirant angel

and boiling, tried to imitate

as if for a joke

the pelting rain on the roof

and so as to make me drowsy

or to mistake me for a fairytale illustration

the moon turned apricot.

this is to be at home in words

of your own choosing

among stenciled cabinets of the Pennsylvania Dutch

where there is no news ever

only the braided rugs.

a simple cot,

Infinity overhead and the constellations fixed.

something to eat made of apples

the ones from old fables,

fallen out of favor.

but still gold.

the stars having flung over me,

their nets of violet.

mary angela douglas 19 october 2021

Stop For A Moment And Read This Poem

stop for a moment and read this poem.

let the greenery of it rustle in the wind

and there you are a child of the wind yourself

that blows all corners of the map in the fairy tale,

remember?

you were at work and now you're not and you can breathe

and in the poem are all the roses you have forgot

each individual rose scent each colour, contour and the petals 

drifting

or you are at home and hear your mother calling you in

from the blue grained dusk

look up from your invoices for a moment

from your latest to do list in the kingdom of what must be done.

oh shun. shun everything but the clouds in the afternoon sky and

later on

they will turn to rubies emeralds yellow diamonds.

this is for you then

when it happens:

remember the poem that told you so.

mary angela douglas 18 october 2021

If You Are The Child Who Stands Tiptoe At Midnight

if you are the child who stands tiptoe at midnight

weighing in the balance of your small hands

the sparkle of snowlight against the stars

one miracle compared with another until

all is miracle I do not pity you that rains later

will wash all this away into the seemingly desultory

that the brine of salt will line your tears along with opals, rainbows

because I know you will retain

both star and snowlight in equal radiance, measure

and no one will own you.

mary angela douglas 17 october 2001

In Mid October

the pearl of layer cake clouds appears

beyond the windows laced with rain

although this summer's intransigent green

allows not yet the hint of flame

to trace the trees to me it's clear

it's mid October of the year

a rubied hush is in the light

an ochre timbre in the wind

and to myself I can't pretend

though summer lingers

there's an end

to certain chapters I've not read

the haunt of living and the dead

memories crowd the thickening air

and catch the heart out, unaware.

oh God to me some moments more

of this Ocrober I implore

to line the lemon stars at dusk

with all that soon must turn to rust.

mary angela douglas 16 october 2021

On What To Do When the Second Best Wish Comes True

maybe it won't turn out to be

the first thing you wished

on the second best star in the Heavens

still it may be better than real butter

on scraped toast

than learning you didn't flunk math after all

just, almost=

or botch the experiment 

so that you have to do it all over again

the day before Christmas vacation ends

so what if you get the green coach and not the red

the sparkly ribbon and not the scarf instead

be thankfull look at the snow moon after awhile and sigh

I'm glad you're not the sun in the summer sky.

mary angela douglas 16 october 2021

Lifting Up The Stone To Throw

lifting up the stone to throw

at the least provocation or worse

no provocation at all

how I wish then suddenly

for the earth to open beneath your feet

just enough to cause you to drop the stone

and to realize

God's eye is everywhere 

sunflower seeded, peacock fledged 

and myriad

upon the innocent.

mary angela douglas 16 october 2021

changed title on may 5 2023 to:

PEACOCK FLEDGED AND MYRIAD (FINAL VERSION)

It Was What I Dreamed

to sleep in a parenthesis of silence

seeded under the snows;

was this poetry;

it was what I dreamed

an ice age ago

to be present at the Resurrection

the instant Light flung its tattered wing

over the darkness sung into gold;

the heart no longer,

broken flower on a stem

floating on the abyss;

the wolves no longer, oh how can I say this-

gnawing the moonlight away.

mary angela douglas 16 october 2021

If I Could Build Inside Myself A House Of Sticks

if I could build inside myself a house of sticks

and decorate the gaps with holly or honeysuckle

well I would do that, just to have you know

a place to live or play in the way we did as children

not thinking about the rain

or the snows later 

the blistering sun

for now there is the little stick house

see I will draw it for you

like St. Exupery's sheep

it will look enchanted in my drawing

maybe I will put some doors in

outlined in green

with yellow knobs and a mailbox

with crayon blue chimney smoke spiraling

out of the red roof's chimney now

and a few steps leading up to the main door

won't you come in

we'll have soggy tea now

a few ritz crackers

and at least while I am asleep

not worry about where the rent will come from

just let the angels solve it

and go to sleep in fleecy God.

mary angela douglas 16 october 2021

To God My Father On the Subject of Poets, Poetic Language

star we say

trying to elaborate on Your themes

flower we whisper ecstatically

or tree, bending low in the wind

we sway too in our naming Yours again

like children finding words for the orange 

as its trickling down our chins

and feeling we have made such marvelous discoveries

without You where would all language be

and to whom would we repeat 

the phrases of felicity

that could not breathe without you?

mary angela douglas 15 october 2021

Scenes From A Christmas Dollhouse In The Catalogue

I will arrange the chairs and  tables

in the dollhouse and call them mine

though other occupants will sit there

and wear the green taffetas in the tiny closet or the rose

depending on my mood

or catch the bouquet of paper flowers so miniscule

a small wedding is all they may afford this afternoon

space being at a premium

a wedding in a nutshell, though gilded.

we will play this all day.

while outside the flimsy windows toward the handheld mirror pond

a curtain of snow is coating the tea set of the local giants.

 the larger dolls. looking on)

while the nursery bears have gone awol and smeared raspberry jam

on all the upholstery.

mary angela douglas 14 october 2021

How A Poem Is Made

the inward collapse of an outward certainty

the glaze gives way

so that the white apple trees are suddenly inside you

the Spring day and swaying and you are full of breezes, blossoms:

this then is a poem

the cracking of surfaces

the piecrust broken 

the delicious oozing of cherries

mixed in with the melted butter

or on a colder day

the tiny skaters glow within

on a frozen pond

with you as the snow globe

humming the skater's waltz over and over

you just can't help yourself

or sometimes, from the earth arises

in transparencies of Time

a thousand thousand Aprils

and all of them singing.

mary angela douglas 14 october 2021

Tide Charts And Sun Tables

in an evening dream I dreamed of Grandmother

that I took her to the seaside 

we went down an almost vertical path

with one bicycle between us

only one of us will need the bicycle 

I said as if this were common sense

she seemed out of place

as though I had moved her 

by virtue of the dream

from her accustomed spot 

at the window of Heaven

as though she were a fussy plant

although redeemed

nevertheless, we descended

just before the seaside

there was an area of colorful flower beds

each bed a solid color

it blazed like  Van Gogh's tulip fields

only, as Grandmother would have said 

in real life, like a too well manicured lawn

pink and indigo and blue blue the color of deep violets

in the woods and cream and I thought fleetingly

how lovely to ride in between all the flowers

we will later on

and then we went and watched some tv

all arts channels

she was taciturn I was upset

I brought you here so we could talk

because I thought you would like it here

but as in many dreams she said no word

and suddenly we were by the sea

gentle waves and I thought

whoever made these dream arrangements

has put us far too close to the edge  I thought with alarm

Grandmother Im going up to check when the high tide comes in

and I ran up quickly the vertical ascent being simple

and woke up before I could find the tide charts

and the sun tables of that eternity

only knowing

we must not drown

mary angela douglas 13 october 2021

Their Purple They Have Wasted On The Wind

their Purple they have wasted on the wind

the lords of nothing, come to make amends

there is no kingdom without God.

and all those who planted flag in sod

or on the Moon or who will to

on Jupiter or as my Grandfather would say,

'what have you," so will I say too

though with a different slant;

what have you 

after that

after you have slammed your pinhole portal on Him

good luck with your regalia, my friend.

and I would say Godspeed

except I know

you go the other way.

and so, there's nothing more to say

I can say.

mary angela douglas 17 october 2021

Catalpa Tree In The District

once I loved a catalpa tree

because its leaves stirred heart shaped in the wind

and it was outside the window my only window

living in a yellow house in just one room, an amiable renter, and

sometimes on a screened in porch 

where the sun turned my rose spined books a faint pink

and my newsprint map taped up of where the heart spent refugees went

that was when I loved even more than the whiff of lilac on the wind,

the story of emigres who learned to live in books;

the legends of swans.

I saved my coins and went to the ballet

and dreamed then, a different choreography for my life

and like St. Francis I believed that it was right

all things should shine my sister, my brother.

sometimes I still believe that.

it has been a long time now

since the workmen came and sawed the tree down to the ground

where its orphaned birds fluttered around the stump;mystified

why should it die

because it soared and spread its heart helplessly over the wires;

there was no warning

but what would they say

we have come to kill the catalpa tree today>

the city sent us.

mary angela douglas 8 october 2021

For That Which Is Beautiful The Artists Carried Water

we would have painted clouds on the horizon

to keep her from thirst

or carried the last drop of water in a thimble

across ten saharas

this much we cared for Beauty

for the ark embroidered song

and the seven rainbows

though masses cried you do us wrong

who speak no word to revolution

but I, I who have bartered the need to belong am happy

for the feeling all along sans restitution

that paper roses could bloom and just like that become the real thing

or you could find yourself on the wrong train going back in a dream

and suddenly step off into a field of pink clouds forever

concealed from the grisly righteous

to tell such stories was our aim

to keep her from wandering away

her liled hem from trailing in the dust

to keep the yellow light in the rain soaked window

all through winter alight and bear the living flame

that we should find in God bright raiment again

without a coin without a name, still let beauty ever reign

though we're looked at with disdain by all the socially thundering

that children may hunt flowers and stars, bright agates

and not lose wonder.

mary angela douglas 8 october 2021

On Reading Again His Verses

 ON READING AGAIN HIS VERSES

(for William Butler Yeats)

again at the crossroads of the Celtic Twilight

I make alas, again my all too temporary home

hearing again as though they were my own

these verses of love outworn as a clouded

an insistent

travailing breath

on the pane of an Eternal wandering.

how shall I prolong the moment

when words were this beautiful unto Death

and when the heart that sang them understood

all the ways of the enchanted wood

and love that faded not with Time.

what have you got in your lost unaccountable

unaccountable pockets

oh modern, postmodern age,

in the Greatcoat of your muted literacy

in exchange for this

I ask with the moon in my wrists

till the specter of that Rose that Rose of all the world arises no more nor the waters of Sligo, the murmuring of bees.

yet in the embattled consciousness remains

the ash stirred imprint of these.

mary angela douglas 20 july 2021;8 october 2021

To Resemble The Light Of The Star

long had some children longed to dream

to grow on earth to resemble the light of the star

to be silver, inside and out

waking or sleeping the same

oh radiance long gone oh withering flame

and shining, where have you flown

that in our eyes was so apparent then

to those watching over us;

to the shadow of looming sorrows.

mary angela douglas 7 october 2021

And Will Not Dream

I want to go where there is only music

music without the critical reviews

without the baton, without the reasons that go on and on

explaining what it is

I just want to hear it

the way I hear the night wind

the way I imagine bright ripples from the stars

in the sky that longs to be ocean

and will not dream of anything else.

mary angela douglas 6 october 2021

All The Poems On Earth Can't Tell Me What The Light Said

all the poems on earth can't  tell me what the Light said

the light winding through the blinds

the Venetian ones, cracked ivory that came with the apartment

with the snow outside

nor you with your chalk in hand

or marking down the score

or counting on the odds whom I cannot implore

can help me reach that shore of lapped waved silence

but only the singular hint of God

set deep in the pearl beset ease

of the earliest white skied breeze

can utter to me 

what the Light said in palest orchid,

recently

mary angela douglas 6 october 2021

Caught In The Snow Queen's Bright, Exacting Mirrors

caught in the Snow Queen's bright, exacting mirrors

children pick their way through the shards of facts

somewhere an apricot sun is dreaming

they can never feel it on their backs

wasting their lives on riddles that heal nothing

sifting no labyrinth sublime 

faint in the awful spell she's weaving

fading before they start in their own Time

who will deliver thee from ice floes

core ice drilled in thee hark, the chime

Christ from the sweet light vanquished

returning, cries in the slaughterhouse

NO!  all these are Mine.

mary angela douglas 6 october 2021

Some Poets, You Know

some poets, you know

just wanted to say: something, anything

beyond the ordinary day

something with pomegranates and bells sewn onto it

as in the Holy Scriptures

effulgently radiant

the Rose of light that rose for Dante to emulate.

for me who am still at core a child at seventy

I think like Maeterlinck:

holy is the sugar in the bowl in the sweet blue bowl

dark bread on the table

the honey gold of butter

and Light in the doorway famiiar in our home.

mary angela douglas 5 october 2021

The Swan Of Tuonela

that sorrowful music passing like a dream

I heard when summer verged on autumn

for perhaps the last remembered time

in my father's house.

the swan, passing from existence

is in other realms now

it was then too

though I did not know the myth.

Just Sibelius, floating through no open window.

I would give anything to be on the trail of that music

as I was then

still among friends

with the slate from around that house in my pocket

its sunset colours for remembrance. as the amulet

to let me in.

how many layers it takes to paint a sunset

on the back of a risen wing.

mary angela douglas 4 october 2021

Thumbelina Scrawls On A Wall

if all they do is size you up

and make you live in a pink cracked cup

and fling you seeds when the weather's rough

then just be merry with what you've got

and don't be chary for what you've not.

mary angela douglas 4 october 2021

Why Don't You (Composition No. 2)

again, to Diana Vreeland

Why don't you...

drink coffee with cream in it from the long ago

when you were living in the Milky Way...

watch carriages come and go and lined in cherry silk,

from a high window...

at purple twilight wear Tweed cologne

in a polka dot dress splashed gold and vermillion

declaim the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

or hop a bus on a pink and blue White Night

thinking of old Rus and bartered fairy tales

and Venice, when Mandelstam was young

and all the glory

of the Poetry to come

and warble Christmas carols

from a summer pier

and wear rhe soul's light mercy

for the more than anguished years.

mary angela douglas 3 october 2021

Small Canción On Disappearing

Small Canción On Disappearing

stepping over the footbridge

we cannot see

because by then we mist will be

a long time this had been in my dream

and going the way of the rose,

the moldering scarlet leaf, the snows

the bird that was singing just last May, the way of all grieved;

ever and ever our fate draws nigh

and nothing to do for it but sigh

it has been so lovely being here

then like the dew

on the cloud clad mountain,

to disappear...

but should you think

that is all that is all

I could sing or say to you in my blue shawl

I will return when you least believe

to say,it was not as we conceived

the way was pearl and the bells pealed then

and mist is only the train we were in

to round the curve of Eternity's bend

mary angela douglas 1 october 2021

The Magic Cat Of The King

cats are known for bringing humans they love

dead mice and laying them at their feet in tribute

this used to be appreciated

but still, everyone knows

this is what a cat does

or could;normal cat behavior,

pat pat pat

this is its category

so its still ok.

once there was a magic cat

who wanted to do more

a cat with enormous resoucefulness

eyes like green almonds

a sterling imagination

she brought her owner gold flecks off the stars

the map to Mars

the bird of great renown

of iridescent blue 

that meant, you will be happy forever now

she braved every kind of weather, somehow

and when she was through

having met all challenges

she looked up at you saying see?

how much I love you, THIS much.

but she was not received.

because you know,

she was a cat

and she wasnt supposed 

to know how to do that

sometimes that's how it feels

to be a girl who writes poetry.

mary angela douglas 1 october 2021