REPOSTING: FOR DYLAN THOMAS IN THE DARK BLUE DUSK, IN THE GILDED DUST OF WORDS

 [for the poet Dylan Thomas) 

as you were singing that the givers of Light

would have no end that the green rills

growing greener would furl in waves

about us ever near and clearer from year to year

and that the sun dipped in the clouds down low

would ever arise

somewhere farther beyond your white roads' chrism

we forgot that poetry is not prose

and no longer gathered the rose upon rose in praise

the once upons.

so that the prismed web broke

apart weeping and with it the human heart

my heart and where

and what and how in Art will the angels come

to trouble the springs again my friend

my friend so that healing descends

when your voice is stilled

when the news is all we know

I cannot comprehend

only that vaguely

blue and darker blue with the dusk

as your disguise the village from afar

you'll view

and weep for Wales and all you knew

the vast tendrils conquered and subdued

for all that meant to you.

and we go casting about in sighs

mere ghosts of ourselves

forgetting what you knew.

that bright words, should not be spare

but myriad, like the stars.

mary angela douglas 24 november 2016; 22 october 2021

REPOSTED: IMAGINE HOW MUCH LIGHTER I FELT

 amazing how much lighter I felt

imagining I was the sky

and held all colours letting them go at sunset and to sleep

and sleeping the dream of clouds of the various declensions

then the clouds lined with moonlight, with gifting snows

or with the violet rains replete

above the trouble below above the forest green oil

of the treelines in the mystical paintings

and farther up, there are angels

semiprecious, a ladder of heavenly commerce

the singing of nations of birds in flight

the winds of the inner and outer worlds

the softer wind from the seashell gale

touching holy palm to palm

the becoming of stars, their imprints unraveling

the fairy tales in jubilation of bells,

the concourse of Heaven, pristine

in all the shades of blue.

and I in a lemon dress

by way of contrast

dreaming this dream

and the golden seams of it all.

mary angela douglas 22 october 2022;18 february 2023

REPOSTED: WHAT CAN NOT BE SOLVED ON EARTH

 stars mired in the labyrinths, casebooks closed.

beautiful volumes still

immortalize the Rose

canny the imposters

pounding at the door

don't answer.

whistle and I'll not come

the motto of this hour.

those who can will wield again

illegitimate power

God alone stands ready

luminous on the Field

yield to Him and you will have

the shield of all that's real

casebooks opened by the watchmen of the night

what cannot be solved on earth

in Heaven, will, in Light.

mary angela douglas 23 october 2022

YOUNG BLUE STARS

young blue stars hung above the prairies

over the blue grass

of the wagon wheel past

and God played the wind's harmonicas

and everything was fine

seen through a long range lens

or gazing at the young blue stars

in a tranquil moment

before the blizzard turned.

mary angela douglas 18 february 2023

AT HOME BY THE RIVERS OF TIME

I always had trouble with geometry

lost among the wildernesses of planes

no grass grows green here

there are no soft clouds but only disdain

for me who cannot keep up with the rest of the class.

but I must measure everything

perpindicular to the classroom floor

where my heart sinks like a sunset

whenever I am called on to answer for

whatever it is that cannot fly anymore

I don't understand 

what I am doing here at all

I think of rhombus and trapezoid

as circus animals, animal crackers

perhaps they will escape with me

feeling less than small

maybe this is some kind of paradox practice  

for the future when I cannot find

the door painted as the mist by the Impressionists

or take on the incidence of points in space

as though they were planets or phantoms...

to live like this...

and I, a banished princess from Andromeda

I do like to imagine the world with no angles

to imagine at Christmas I will secretly change

all the angles to angels who know

what Euclid did as a child on Saturdays

was he allowed to blow bubbles, watch crisp

cereal and cartoons, grow soggy?

was he ever bored with this

was he really a real person

I smash the book closed

and all the figures 2.3  to 40.5 are further crushed

but not like crushing a rose in a book

no rose could live here even as a momento

losing all colour while shorn of meanings

all the gardens rectangular black holes

averse to light

to the doorways painted as a mist by the Impressionists

that must exist, if only we could find them

to exit, to recover our souls

the soul of everything

to breathe the fullblown Spring

as if we were flowers or

the cheerful ferns who factored nothing

but mild sunshine, at home. by the rivers of Time

mary angela douglas 18 february 2023

MANCHURIAN WEDDING

it's just another manchurian wedding portrait

I say in the dream to distance myself

but it doesn't work and I know you will

think immediately this is a political poem

but I can tell you this has nothing to do with politics

politics will not help you here  in this realm where I am

conscripted again

into someone else's scene and I can't get loose

in my red cloth shoes bound so tightly

and I trip on the golden nails that hold me to promises

I would never make not asleep and not awake

I toss the paper away with the grainy newspaper print

you will not send for me I say

horrifying, I cannot read the calligraphy

it isn't meant for me, not at all

but the bride and groom in the picture are insistent

I go with them 

and my life depends on it or so they seem to say

in blind and deaf mute dream words compelling me from

a clipping a wedding announcement in an untranslateable tongue

where tea is served as green as the sea and in foreign ports

where they eat kumquats and spit out the seeds

they will spit out my soul but then I will be free

where I cant translate a thing

except I am supposed to know the people in the photograph

who will force me to go and follow the customs

this will start to become my life

but I just want to go home face down on the lawn of my

childhood

and clutch the native grass the innocent clover and see my

small dog play

let's go right now my soul weeps into someone's strange bright

handkerchief 

someone with a meaningless and grim expression

I dont want to dream of manchurian weddings

I will not be bound

to promises I would never make.

asleep or awake. nor take tea from the cobalt blue teapot

with the seven inexplicable and dire

and golden cranes.

where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

mary angela douglas 17 february 2023

WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE MAP SOME POSSIBILITIES

the map could be lost or else we forgot to bring it

or it got tossed or left out in the rain

or maybe a country or two faded off of it

and now we must make do with what

the moss on the trees, Orion under clouds?

the land of green ginger that only comes to you

when it feels like it

or magic carpets, mardi gras beads

in every colour

the cloak of invisibility

or worn footpaths that suddenly appear

only after you start walking toward some destination

that isn't at first clear or maybe we should just go back

and have a few snacks or two said winnie the pooh

I imagine he did and so we did

and that is how it started to rain for real

changing the day and the day's memory

so that we grew it on the back porch

with the geraniums

and started a game called

whatever happened to the map

mary angela douglas 16 february 2023

THEIR BITTERNESS WAS NOT MINE

I remember the early frosts

the planet tilting a little awry

going away in the summertime

from schools and being at home

being at home, so gladly.

I remember the early school dread

what the teachers said

on happier occasions and less enchanting ones

snatching the radiance away and ill tempered

pulling the shades down over the sun

and later the iagos dotting the landscapes

holding on to the strawberry handkerchiefs

their bitterness is not mine

I understand

some people are born to be the early frosts

to put the candles out to douse the least enthusiasms,

early, and questing querulous and behind the scenes

disparage

the

gifts of fate and memorabilia they're not in charge of

because hey it's too bright in here

for candles when the dark of the moon is out

but you know

their bitterness was not mine

their itch to spoil

nor mine their insinuating exasperating doubts

directed at me and countless others

it's true a lot of equations I never learned to solve

but God gave me this one resolve

to carry on

even if only

for the sake of Song

to drift away from lies and the crabapple gossips

finding the opal glimmer inside the shell

to draw water from the freshest wells of beauty

all, all my life

and seek, emphatically, and to find:

full of the grace of serendipity,

the brighter side of Time.

mary angela douglas 15 february 2023

UP LATE AND HERE'S YOUR FORECAST

at the bottom of the screen

the weather updates itself

it's after midnight and 51 degrees F

and mostly cloudy

you can see a light blue fluffy illustrating cloud

hiding a quarter of a moon, not even dime sized

but what I thought if the next time

I look down I suddenly see

due to increasing fatigue

51 degrees and double rainbows

51 and a half and emerald winds over the plains

52 degrees and a blue monsoon

53 degrees and the moon has lost the trees

54 and snow has covered the sun

55 are we really still alive

a person needs to sleep

you have to confess

students need their rest

old people too

or if, tomorrow, you've got a job to do

or else the weather will look

really strange to you

the wind careening from Zanzibar

the earth off its axis

and tumbling.

and under your chair, it's rumbling.

GO TO SLEEP!!

mary angela douglas 15 february 2023

MENDELSSOHN DREAMS OF THE CLOUDLESS BLUE

mendelssohn dreams of the cloudless blue

at twilight, the Fairy Queen's entrances

tangled with silver in the woods

impetuous it is understood

the glittering panoply from the start

far from the servitude of the world

mendelssohn dreams of the clouded nights

the Fairy King's stations of the cross

all to whom the truth is lost

beyond the dream mirror

on the other side

I am a child with a bride like doll

always arriving when the curtains part

full of the fairydust of the heart

or when the light parts from the dark

in the music, always crying.

mendelssohn dreams of the players awake

the strange engarlanded, the childish mistakes

the starcrossed, the starcrossed always make

the dreamers awake and midsummer too

reality fades when the music's through

and this is the way I always feel

that only the dream, the dream, is real.

mary angela douglas 14 february 2023

SONG

I favor the singers who step aside

and let the song shine through

becoming pure music

on their own

clear as air

letting the starlight through

to hear a song sung that way

is rare now

though not impossible

the birds know how

never missing a note

the nightingale,

bringing tears to the Emperor's eyes.

mary angela douglas 13 february 2023

A BIT OF CLAIRVOYANCE SETTLES IN

a bit of clairvoyance settles in

though it's not October 

with its amber glint

and I have set my soul like flint

to think of the music of Clair de Lune

the ripples of music not out of tune

on the rickety piano inside my head

that glasslike, recorded it all.

what's to remember what's to recall

the harplike song the harplike song

through the open window

of the breezes long departed

and I would chart if ever I could

the worlds it conjured of infinite good

the same trees swaying and the day dream moon

and how I felt when Clair de Lune

filled all my dreams and the vicinity

with what I still cannot emulate in words

clairvoyance dreams me again and again

hearing Debussy in an endless spin

on the world I thought could never end

though its only the ghost of that prelude I hear.

grown more indelible down the years.

gold inked, on a lake of tears.

mary angela douglas 13 february 2023

NEWS CYCLE TRICYCLE

already yesterday's champions on the news

struggle to find what to say and what to do

glory is fleeting is such a timeless cliche

no one will ever remember it today

hooray and hooray again

that's the basic way to win

to live for the moment

and watch it drift away

just dreaming of when it was only

just today.

mary angela douglas 12 february 2023

FOR MY MOTHER

what is left of her life I said

an answer to me softly sped

the fairytale gleanings

lost in the music I dreamed on

where then was the silent swan song, when

I was answered by the wind

could I dream it could I dare

to hear her footfall on an empty stair

but someone kept on whispering there

canter not in full despair

upon the hills of spring o.

though they are rare,

the fairytale gleanings

light and bright as snow

as snow upon the early rose

they will not melt there, though.

mary angela douglas 12 february 2023

THE KING OF HEARTS

God should be the King of all hearts

He is I whispered to the blank skies

He is the skies soft pale thundered back

but we thought something else, we lack

there is, a something

someone else in the garden

we went away we lost our minds

we came up empty every time

God should be the king of hearts He was

i mourned to the empty days

he was i cried through the choking haze

He is I whispered to the world at large

the only one the only one

the only one can be relied on

without Him we are torn apart

without him we are forced to dig

our own graves thinking that we live

or else to live with knaves

we are I whispered to the endless dark

God is the King the king of hearts

He is

I sobbed into the day of what's to come.

He is. much more

than the fizzing fireworks popcorn shows

He is cried the sea to all the shores

and all the children in their sleep.

mary angela douglas 12 february 2023

ONLY MORE BEAUTIFUL

never have I seen the stars' embroidery

on the other side

of the sky

where it is perhaps knotted and tangled

secured for our delight

God's knots must be firm to withstand

our worst nights, the worst night of the world

and I imagine silvery blue it shines

still through dazed forests beyond Time, the starlight

still less of music do I comprehend

were the ink blots on the scores

mistook for notes

or Beethoven's tears

smudging the manuscripts in after years

so that we play like a music box struck by lightening

what for him regardless of deafness

was not frightening

only more beautiful in the end

with the mistakes left in.

mary angela douglas 11 february 2023

THE LITTLE HOUSE BY VIRGINIA BURTON

i remember the apple blossomed picture book

the sun on every page and then the rains

and the little house at home in every season

and I wanted to live there

when I grew up

but the people moved away

and soon, no one else came to stay there

until

the little house was uprooted and it grew

again where it was planted

under the apple trees, forever in the sun.

\mary angela douglas 10 february 2023

MYSTERIOUS STARLIGHT ONCE AGAIN

mysterious starlight, once again

in my small apartment just filters in

with none of the paperwork signed off on

without approval from those with good lawns

mysterious starlight refreshes my soul

though I am not famous though I am too old

defying the scripts and the evening news

flowing forever in silver and blue

on clear nights or cloudy

an infinite stream

through my inner vision

from dream to dream.

without any judgement

without any rue

it glistens and listens

and sees me through

mysterious starlight oh

I love you.

mary angela douglas 8 february 2023

MENDELEEV'S DREAM (OF THE PERIODIC TABLE)

merely to mention mendeleev's dream

would seem to evoke old poetry itself

and wrapped in mythic clouds imperiously

tormenting as a sea can be

with little warning jarring the soul

a self contained poem a chromatic fantasy

a place in which to hide the gold of

improbable discovery rendered suddenly luminous

not a paint by numbers set

not something flawlessly retrieved from the files

and point by point graphed to dry smiles, or applause

gentlemen oh now we know of course, we should have seen it

as an easy certainty, a puzzle fixed in place

showcased under glass in the dusty museum

the fact that it came to him in a dream

imagery and the whole intact

frustrating forever those who want

the numbers to line up the facts

and let that be an end to it astounds

just as the moon emerging from clouds

dreaming enters in

and spoils the impersonal logic expected

conclusively

Enters in: the beauty of another realm defended

beauty irself tresspasses here and mystery tiptoes in

that should have been banned but had the last interpretive

role

in the play astonishes me so that I praise

the God of all mysteries of beauty improvident

and excessive breaching the barrier 

between art and science, waking and sleeping

although these days from the hearse of the data driven

many curse that it happened that way and will not

acknowledge it

at all.

because their god is just too small.

mary angela douglas 8 february 2023

NOT ON THE SAME PAGE

not everyone is on the same page

of the Book of Lamentations

and why should they be

and why should anyone be keeping track of this

and bringing us up to speed

except God who understands

every anomalie ever felt

by each one and grieves

and regards it most deeply

as His own frozen

sparrows fluttering to the ground.

with faint heartbeat in the trials of sleet

waiting to be found.

mary angela douglas 7 february 2023 revised from 2022

I SAID IN A VOICE THAT WAS BEYOND MY OWN

the lilies had overflowed their banks in my dream

and they were all of yellow gold

and I said in a voice that was beyond my own

there was never before but once

an Easter like this

and I stood for awhile and wondered at the river of lilies

and what it meant and the scent of them

vanquished all the dark glooms that had pervaded 

the poets in the past and I cannot say even so

to you in words how everything was lifted into the Light

I mean, everything.

mary angela douglas 6 february 2023

THESE WINTER TRANSLATIONS

these winter translations cannot hide the chill

and all the words forever going everytime uphill

and frozen are all meanings there distilled

the touch of frost is evident in the rose

the blighted roots are everywhere deposed

I pity the Romantics to their souls

who in these versions reposed

who didnt realize how

their poems were decomposed.

better it was for them to be unknown

than by the translators thus to be

disowned.

mary angela douglas 6 february 2023

THE COLOURS OF STARS WHEN THEY ARE DYING

the colours of stars when they are dying

are surely recorded now somewhere

in astronomical images stored

and archived for astronomers to share

but in my mind I see them falling

from earthly skies into otherwheres

in lemon fizz

or a pink and green so rarely seen

and violet in the last phases

and cinder scarred oh where they are

and heartfelt, fading in the maze,

the maze of all the Ages

I feel them rise again and fail

in scattered sequins and unveiled

and on a summer sky like chalk

turn pale

still try to shine and sadly falter

collapsing or relapsing into beauty

shimmering in a trail

wounded and wearied.

for all all such

energy is love

and Light, the most of all.

mary angela douglas 6 february 2023

STILL LIFE

still life.

a purple plum and a golden one

before a vase of summer sky blue

still life

but nothing in the world is still

I wonder why the earth is ill

and quiet beauty has unease.

still life.

dark cherries in a bowl of jade

and I have lost the summer shade

and gilded sunbeams on the page

of a book I had not read for an Age

still life.

but nothing on earth is still today

except the words i have to say

the letter I won't write today

still life

becomes.

a violet plum and an apricot one

and I have lost the summer sun

against the promises I was made.

still life.

becomes.

mary angela douglas 5 february 2023

WEST OF THE LULLABY TOWNS

west of the lullaby towns

dressed in our infant gowns

children of long ago, storybook, want to go there

in the blue shade

nightlight parade

all of the toys slumping down

some of them

on the ground after they played

all the day

into the last rosy lights

say good night

dont be frightened

God comes to stay

when you're away

west of the lullaby towns

on your way Milky Way

all the things

forgot to say

I remember now

west of the west of the lullaby towns.

mary angela douglas 5 february 2023

THINKING IT LIGHT

they said that you had fallen away

no longer interested in the Beautiful

from the ancient texts,

taking nothing visionary

ever anymore

I wept in corners

finding no other place to grieve.

slowly the shadows turned garnet

and I stopped.

how can I come to an understanding

that you would depart after long days

the golden apples within your grasp

the Phoenix feather, the maytime weather

and all the storied past and turn away

to favor lean times

like Nebuchadnezzar,

eating the grass or content merely

to pluck ghost apples or just let them tumble

from the withered trees.

no longer the squire.

the aspirant knight

living in darkness

and thinking it light.

mary angela douglas 5 february 2023

FROST

as a child I did wonder about what the grownups meant

by "a hard frost"

frost is not good for living things

any frost would be hard enough

and now I feel a conversation with Robert Frost

is coming up in the glazed over wings of my imaginary playhouse

or the wings of angels are scripted in frost

on my immemorial window panes, ghost windows

gleam and suddenly I say its much the same thing to say

gazing out at a shivery window tree

I've lived through apple frosts today a thousand times over

Mr. Frost would understand

and so I think of him and the kindred gift of the land

in all his poetry:

the snowy harness shake of his horse in the cold cold woods and

I wonder if he is still writing conversational poems

in Heaven, if there is maple sugar there. or if 

the birch tree swings still dazzle in the ice storms 

brittle and shimmering;

I know there are no fences there

earth's the right place for frost

I hear him say.

for all the apple orchard ladders

leaning against the infinite skies.

wishing they may be stars.

mary angela douglas 5 february 2023

THE INK WILL LEAK THROUGH THE CEILING

the ink will leak through the ceiling of one floor below me

I will write so much about your glory, Father

or at least every firefly word I can, faintly

like Pascal in the moment of revelation

except he was so overcome

he forgot to take notes

in an instant of splendor

there are no words

but if I could choose a dream to dream

and a lucid moment in it

I would go back in time

and look through the windows

and whisper like an angel through

the wind in the trees a marginal angel,

Pascal.  for the sake of those who will come later...

Write it down.

mary angela douglas 5 february 2023;18 february 2023

PURPLE HONEY

for Carl Sandburg

at 1251 am I found out there is purple honey

it occurs in my own state

I am happy to know there is purple honey

I am happy to know I have lived long enough

to find that out on my birthday

I will change my molecules out for purple honey

I will live a long time

I will write purple poems from hereon out.

mary angela douglas 5 february 2023

MESSAGES

why is it never written on the clouds O Flee

before catastrophe

or someone sends a postcard with no name

to let you know there is a cost to fame

oh, so. go another way

sometimes there is a message

but not always

sometimes the message gets delayed

the messenger is slain on the way

or merely brushed aside

where is it then

the place that you could hide

if only you had known

or someone on the phone

had not lied

or you wake up

bothered by a dream

that you don't understand

and if you try to get it all in hand

you'll be late for work.

and on the way...

later it was said

the crash couldnt be averted

impossible to say

once the deed is done

the total eclipse of the sun

the last wave on its way

all you can do is pray.

and in the last moments wonder

could it have gone another way?

mary angela douglas 4 february 2023

FIRST LANGUAGE REVERIE

how to recognize at first the snow names

to distinguish one from the other

to recognize your own name

among all the others

you on the school bus going away

with your satchel and your address pinned into it

or earlier still home to trace the

letters, shapes and sizes, colorforms

all flowers, or only one violet

all suns, or only this ray

to sort the orange from the apple

to make the twilight stay

stay it will not but only be lavender fading into

not so colorfast indigo, then night

or it is evening, they say

and the stars shine like milk you feel

milkshine. you say

and it is summer also

and at night the flowers smell most sweetly

if someone leaves the window open for you

the window above the garden

or rain fills the garden

as if it were destined to be 

an ark of flowers

you want to sail on the ark in your sleep

to breathe in the flowers

to rest in the flowers

and now you know some of their names

will they let you be petals too

you wonder

because you are still new

and the sounds and the names of things

are beautiful to you as the arpeggio of rains

as the hush of shadows are the hyacinth names

and the name is the flower

the flower is its names

and God is hid in the husk of it

and you dream to be lilacs

or one star lit above the winter trees

anything at all

so that they will love you, mama and papa

this is why you want to say

all, all the myriad names.

but not the one that carousel cries, goodbye.

I have fallen off the world.

mary angela douglas 4 february 2023

SAINTS ON A PATH THAT BLAZING

there is no courtly love except in Heaven

or in books emblazoned with heraldries of the Rose

no Grail that now is not forbidden

no knights who bleed on holy ground alone

and yet

somewhere the realm exists

if we could unearth it

siglo de oro, ladder of sweet ascent

unto the ruined and shadowy choked off towers

long ago running out of rent

my horse caparisoned in emeralds

my home by the sky dreamed ebbing tides

I wait and I watch and listen

for Christ is riding by

saints on a path that blazing

could not abandon us here

we are surrounded forever

by those who raged at fear.

mary angela douglas 3 february 2023

SNOW IN SUMMER

I liked the stage sets and the scenery

and all the coloured filters for the moons

but when I really think of how the play went

I wish I could go back and change the room

in the castle

to some other room in rhe castle

the stage directions seemed a bit askew

in another part of the forest

the one you once adored is

in a different scene

with a different point of view

maybe it's the script

but I don't think so

maybe all the actors

lost their cues

Im the one whos always reminiscent

dancing in the wings in my silver shoes.

I liked all the fairy tale effects though

clouds and angels

never came to rust

still. oh just be still.

till your heart is motionless

as if all time stopped

still believe you will

live out your life

not needing any spotlight

knowing who you were meant to

always represent oh, how the arrow's bent

I don't want to fly

full of stardust trust in peter pan

I just want to know

how did they make it snow in summer

you did all you could

to sew the cape of rose I wore

when the wolf was at the door

and I almost could cry

looking out that door

where you hid the easter eggs

in every single flower bed

and we were happy home.

and with ambrosia fed

and I still want to know

how did they make it snow in summer

we would laugh all day

thinking it was May

flinging out the paper roses

still. oh just be still

winding down the clock of what you will

there's another play

and its on the way

when all these ties are severed

we'll find that we're forever

where they make the summer snow.

mary angela douglas 2 february 2023

NO GHOSTS ALLOWED

bust up the card games of the gloomy ghosts

hanging around and burning cheese toast

bringing us down in the basements of the parlez vous?

not to you!

bring on the Christmas

all that decor

chase all the goblins

off of the moor

cut off the bad news

and all the tabloids too

throw out the trash and the haunting bells

bury forever the misery spells

trim up the castle and the puppy dog too

we're going to feel brand new.

heck with the cuss-ed who play I spy

stealing the custard

so the babies cry

pick all the flowers,fill all the vases too

put on a pretty dress, 

sing out till there's no rest,

nap for the doldrums

shoo fly shoo

we've heard enough from you.

cheerfully, bid adieu.

your career here is through.

mary angela douglas 2 february 2023

THESE WINTER STRAWBERRIES

(with love to Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas and to my sister, Sharon)

these winter strawberries fit for a queen

shone in my made up story

more than anything

inspired by my mama and the stories she told

of Cornbread Corners a kingdom, behold!

where children were always happily seen

eating strawberries and cornbread

and strawberries and cream

and so winter strawberries had become my theme

of all of the luxuries longed for till spring

its these winter strawberries like rubies bedight

when the stars in their courses shine terribly bright

and rich in our stories, full laden with cream

I think of my mama and spoon up the dream

and spin for her somewhere the straw into gold

so Strawberry Corners can never grow cold.

mary angela douglas 2 february 2023

THE THINGS WE HAVE TO DO

such a beautiful opalescence touched the sky

and I was listening to Debussy and trying not to cry

that the beauty mirrored in the sky

the beauty in the music too

were living in a world apart

from the things we have to do

we have to do.

such a beautiful opalescence touched the trees

they sounded like aeolian harps when the wind breathed

but I was crying in the wind that there is no use to pretend

that the beauty mirrored in the trees

and in the breezes too

werent living in a world apart

from the things we have to do

we have to do

such a beautiful opalescence touched the day

and now its dusk and everything's going  away

and I say my prayers like a long lost orphan stray

and weep again at the thing that I must say

that the beauty mirrored all around

could be leaving earth without a sound

and it's so true

we were  living in a world apart

from the things we had to do

we had to do.

mary angela douglas 2 february 2023

I DON'T KNOW

why did we expect a jeweled wand

a ball dress to match

a pair of slight wings

was not because we were all closed up

from the truth of things

but that we saw farther in

so does the rose disclose without disclosing anything

and shines in a fragrant light

why did we anticipate Spring after Spring

the world overfilled so lovingly with flowers

and stars in the after hours and long after

still the silver aftermirage or the ivory

of a field of vision like first snows

I don't know.

I only dreamed it so.

mary angela douglas 1 february 2023

I HAVE BEEN ONE NOT OPPOSED TO THE RUMINATIONS OF BEARS

I have been one not opposed to the ruminations of bears

sitting taciturn on the windowsill on school mornings

sad to see us go.

thoughtful on our return, a secret happy glint

from their shoebutton eyes.

doing pawstands QUIETLY in the corners

while the grownups made dinner.

how comforting was their furry silence

when we got in trouble

or when it rained all day on a SATURDAY!

in any mood, ready to play

or to just be there

in such a reassuring way.

all in all

we always knew

they had a lot to say.

and were thinking it very hard

and directing it our way.

mary angela douglas 1 february 2023

REBRANDING

why should we make and remake ourselves into a product

is this the fruit of civilization, of all learning?

the reaping of private tears?

the harvest of all our years?

we who were full of clouds and stars

already we are branded

on the unfathomable mind and heart

of the Living God

how can this possibly not be sufficient

Imago Dei!

my soul cries out among the duly numbered;

yet we would be herded and played

mumbling among the demographics.

indistinct, ticker tape for the blank parade.

fodder for the city planners.

let me not bow down

to the shadow puppets.

let my darlings not be rushed and crushed

oh no, by the status quo, leaving all the wild greenery behind.

seeking safe corners to die in.

let us be so beautifully remiss

on this or any other cattle call

though we are turned to stone

still we will be His own.

 

mary angela douglas 1 february 2023