NOR EVER OF DREAMING BE DISABUSED (REVISED)

 

 

so what if they scatter our flotillas of light

with their little pink birthday candles

on aome other shore they will alight

beyond the masquerades, the predictable awnings

we will find the unshaped gardens again

the wild rose music and our pure hearted friends

the beautiful fields of what has been;

who owns the light

serenade it to the lunch time crowds

when you haven't even a quarter for eclairs

whisper to God what they won't permit or bear

to heck with their glares

the night bird sings

the moon in rings is haloed still

call it what you will, a retrograde star

the need to seek the very Far From Here

since childhood. really

to disappear in a Christmas mood

where there isn't any other news

only raspberries and fresh cream...

nor ever of dreaming be disabused.

mary angela douglas 29 august 2022;28 february 2023

TRANSPOSITIONS (REVISED)

 

can these lilies be transposed

I asked my grandmother in a waking dream

in between the seams of childhood in a twilight light

light purple it is or later we called it lavender

once we knew the word, the words and the colour of

lavender blue and that little song

I wished I had asked her about that music

the way she looked at it how it lodged in her soul

about music for the pianoforte she seemed to know everything

everything is music I could say I would have said then

or sung in a roundelay

and I did feel without saying it the lilies could be transposed

why not as flowers should have that capability

drifting on the waters of Monet or Debussy perhaps

memorial

leaning toward the sun or under the moon looking different

perfuming the air with silver for as long as the dream time runs.

her Liebestraum.

her hands, christening the keys.

making my Grandfather weep.

mary angela douglas 29 august 2022;28 february 2023

OLD COINS I HAVE FOUND BENEATH THE RUINS (REPOSTED)

 

 

old coins I have found beneath the ruins

old coins not to save perhaps to spend

on finding the memory of God again

old coins like tears I could not shed

for the living or the dead

though each one shines a sunset tear

a single century or a year

near the aqueduct half washed in the seas

the sea of Time that's ebbing from me.

they shine with a familiar shine

they bear an inscription half Divine

oh where will I spend them

what will they buy

now that the night is drawing nigh

old coins I have found and wept to see

an odd inscription of love for me

a song half flung from Calvary

a patina formed by the years from home

a rose gold sigh on a foreign wind.

mary angela douglas 30 august 2022

IN A PRELUDE INDICATING THE WHOLE BALLET (REPOSTED)

 

dedicated with great respect and admiration and in all their generations to Maxim D. and Karen Lasser Shrayer...

beautiful, on the lake of my dreams float the swans

innumerably

in a light that is hushed and jeweled:

crystal precipitate!

in a prelude that indicates the whole ballet

I too that is my soul each night would alight

or on enameled afternoons, flashpoints of Beauty,

to thread through death the ferrier warnings in even one 

shimmering thread;

to perfect such floating seclusion

whatever epoch we are stranded in.

how can there be sin

in a world where the swan appears, the swans

as from Tuonela or Hans Andersen, Pavlova,

mythically, waiting for the great bells to ring

out of their legends into our entranced hearing,

seeing, feeling.

I too have sounded my griefs in the foreign ballets

awash in wonder beyond all fearing,

beyond any country known or unknown

and where will I come home

to say whatever it means

this fine iridescence, this pearled thunder

mirage forever pealing wherever seen

in the hall of memories or of dreams, in the public garden

for a day tripped Space

or in all of Art if only to pray

in the merest trace upon strange waters:

now you will drift

after long tribulations. sifting the mysterious.

and in the plumage of the freed.

mary angela douglas 30 august 2022

FOR MY SISTER SHARON, IN HER MUSICAL DISPLAYS

 

 

I wonder if we'll be on the other side of music one day
ushered in with pink programmes
or you will swing on the gate of it

as you did before, roller skating
in preludes, wading through scales., Scarlatti
geranium coloured.

will the notes sound like crystals

falling;will we still admire the azaleas?
will Grandmother spell out tone poems
while we listen to small records

of the great composers;
remember, when we're away

the reticence of Beethoven

how he was charged with Light
after the rains, the wind shaking the leaves free of raindrops.

will the sheet music be scattered through the rose garden
because we left the windows open

or glimpsed in the pink nightlight

short songs on the page, arranged.
our faces in cameo infant profile;the toy pianos at rest
and then, the nocturnes.the almond trees somewhere,

blossoming.

on the other side of the world.

it seems so distant now
the way we dreamed it then:
both hands on the keys

the gardenias, scented through the back screen door

now we are carried each on such a wave
through portals on a ship that wasn't there before

we never booked passage on.
you said in your sleep a baby corsage!
I know you must have in your rabbiting dreams

with the guardian angels and the metronome;

this is Heaven

this is home where
music goes on and Mama sings our birthdays
rose light through the curtains in the afternoons.

may it always be.and near the pines.
after a dry season
you will lift the piano lid

like a sunrise.
and small bouquets will arrive
for the recital.

mary angela douglas 14 january 2020

 

WELL, ALREADY (REVISED)

 

why should we live waiting for the days to end

why not pretend you are already immortal

well, your soul is.

it takes the strain off

suddenly you are feather light

you could be snow

you could even be the skies

the rustle of angels

going by

the birds from early lullabies

the ensign of the Rose perennial

and divine.

mary angela douglas 31 august 2022;28 february 2023

NOT THE EXPECTED ENDING

sometimes the point on the pencil breaks off

in the middle of the exam and the clock's light ticking

begins to boom this is a summer nightmare you tell yourself

we're not in school now and I wake up in my room

certain I must have mislaid some papers and oh no,

where are they?

and realize I'm still dreaming and when will this end

or I think what if the lead point breaks at the same time

triggering the final war that takes us all out of here

and everywhere there are sirens even as the coffee just

begins to percolate, or you're at the bakery choosing plum

danish over apricot

and the sun like an enlarged heart

just stops beating

then thank God I wake up and the squirrels have plopped

down on the balcony railing bright and fluffing their bushy

tails as if kindly pushed by St. Francis

into miraculous sunlight and I learn a new fact about

squirrels.

they are very good at interrupting nightmares.

and making me laugh.

mary angela douglas 28 february 2023

DO WE LIVE USEFUL LIVES

do we live useful lives

to say the beautiful things or try

to work at that like an enterprise

not to get paid for it

not to manipulate or cajole

but only to put back the shiny things

when they fall off the edge and break

that is the meaning that I take

from all the books I ever read

from all the things they ever said

and really meant

as if they were heaven sent

and I know they were

on a day I was falling off of the world myself

I turned a page

and the midnight sun returned.

mary angela douglas 28 february 2023

BREATHING LIKE TRITON, INTO THE SHELL

 

breathing like Triton, into the shell

I hear the winds rising, the sea winds rising

though I am inland and inhabit no shore

and never have

and yet I hear as plain as can be

the green wave turning, the pivotal wave

and then,

the waves upon waves surging

and I dread some prophecy is behind this

I have watched on a movie screen

happy when the show was over

to see such a dramatic thing

without drowning and while eating candy bars

and is it the shell of the world I ask myself

gazing at all the blue parts of the globe

while I still can  

oh God, if so oh

help my soul reach land.

mary angela  douglas 27 february 2023

POSIES

 

can we show you something in laptops? the friendly Amazon gmail read.

isn't that what they used to say in the fancy dress shops?

Can we show you something in your size, madam?

so I imagine a throw back kind of time

and I am indeed among the Diors, the costumes worn

for the grade school plays, of course, the fairytales

which shall it be, the chiffons for the princess

the swiss batiste for the goosegirl?

or I am transported back in time

to a hat shop where all the hats oh JOY

are trimmed with roses, little veils.

no, no laptops today.

thanks anyway.

but I would like a full bouquet

of what my grandmother called

"posies."

mary angela douglas 27 february 2023

THERE IS A PLANETERIUM IN MY HEAD (REVISED)

 

(to my Grandfather, Milton B. Young)

there is a planetarium in my head

where stars in their tinfoil whirr overhead

and I am a tiny queen of the stage props

devised to emulate the sun and the moon;

if I blur my eyes to a state of dream

all the star wheels can be seen

for Spring and Summer and

the Winter Constellations

the subtle maps of Autumn I withhold from this poem

so that I may remain on earth a little more gold and secretly

and all this is a kind of birth recurring

like the paper revolving charts

our Grandfather brought home for us one day

to my sister and I as though he were handing us

the universe one summer

with his mysterious smile

his fervent adoration of the Space Program

so I turn my inner skies

so many years later

in charge somewhat

of my own theater and surmise 

or know outright, if I am patient for awhile

as God was patient in His "Let There Be Light"

as compared with my subordinate clause of

"let there be twinkliness"

all the stars will come clear

and all the light years.

mary angela douglas 1 september 2022;27 february 2023

THE FABLE REPRISED (REVISED)

 

and to Hans Christian Andersen...

 

I sing of the fabled nightingale in the fable of the fable

of the day before

light entered the picture

light entered the picture and colours were born

and each note was a colour and a lantern we held up

to illumine the bruised shadows. to say beyond what can be

said:

are you weary?

I sing of the nightingale in the last fable of the world

though how could it know its candor was a prelude

to the shifting of all dreams, reality, exquisitely

the little children sucking on sugar candies

all murmurings in the bruised shadows are

language falling apart oh my heart my heart

still it sang of a coolness reprieved

and anguish paused for an instant and listened

and the heart in its cove listened

it sang in the white rosed gardens

under the Emperor's window

where the shade was drawn

against all starlight

and each star was a tear behind a lilac cloud

a child crayoned in on a lilac wind

and each lilac was a cloud come to fruition

and I caught the lilacs in the parting night

and Spring at its onset and yet not a bridal bouquet was

the end of all worlds or one world

where the white roses have come to me unfolding petal by petal

their prophetic sadness with no more reasons to resume

then suddenly the ancient faults shifted

then suddenly the ancient wave arose

uprearing its curling blues and greens

its jade shadows on the foretelling ink blocks

music like this was never composed

rose upon rose in the deepening darkness

the nightingale song arose at the point of death

into the zenith of everything

Holy God for a moment closed His eyes

and I saw it all in the final mirrors

and heard the Nightingale's cry

and all colors descended into their blind goodbyes

and all dreams were shut up like a most elaborate fan

all the clamouring.

and singing infinite singing echoed on-

in the Borderlands.

mary angela douglas 1 september 2022;27 february 2023

THE MUSIC BEARING US ON (REVISED)

 

did we sing where everything was perishing

where night winds diminished in a different key and the white lilies

where the stars bloomed too

expiring with the dew

and the novas fell to earth invisibly

or its facsimile

in papier mache

amidst the other school projects

due the next day

at the science fairs, at the school plays

or mentioned nervously

in the oral book reports on books we chose

before the last bell arrived

the last bells...the summer rose

then we sang and it was December

and the carols lit the candles at home

and the Tree was up and festooned

bright with pear shaped bulbs in tulip colours

with multiple reflections in the icicles we flung

in colors of the borealis or stained glass in all the colours

I remember the words and the music, the feeling of singing

cresting the bright waves of music in our nativities

silver bells tucked amid the holly

silver bells rang out from the winter edged clouds

the way our childhood speaking, sparkling made clouds in the winter

air

then in all the aprils

or in graduation mays

still the feeling of the white flowers heaped

upon the revolving stage

and we were perishing in our sleep

without knowing 

were we perishing

or only vanishing line by line

our souls all along a distant chime

into the eternities with each note relinquished

floating the boat of music

going into the dream time

song after song,with those we loved

the music, bearing us on.

mary angela douglas 2 september 2022;27 february 2023

OCTOBER'S FAIRS ARE WHIRLING IN THE DARK (REVISED)

 

october's Fairs are whirling in the dark

snapdragon colours firework sped

crown all the parks and we feel wistful

one by one as if our dreaming days were done

then God touches the leaves with golden arpeggios

and we are overcome;

the moon is lined in cream.

and when it rains it's autumn rain descends

and the earth gives forth a scent

redolent and fairylike as in the former days

past Time and memory's moss, grazed with the stillness

where we wandered

seeking no one's praise but His

who made the  october earth to be like this

a colour wheel fizzing in the cooling dark

and all the children in love with dusk,

the blue, the deep raspberry shadows.

mary angela douglas 3 september 2022;27 february 2023

THE WAY IT HAPPENED IN THE PICTURE BOOK (REVISED)

  

farther into the music it will start to snow

for the lost children in the fairytale

you know,

hand in fragile hand under veering moonlight

holding each other up as though they could

sip the moon from a silver cup in the dubious Wood

and enchant the birds.

conjure the birds to show them where to go sojourn

in deeper music ever deepening snow oh

who will guide them now, their feckless angels?

or is their doom sealed shut

or is their small print case on vast appeal

I dare not ask of anyone yet but, oh, I try to feel

one day unwavering Spring will emerge

when there will be no more dirges left on earth.

mary angela douglas 3 september 2022;27 february 2023

GREEN BEANS (REVISED)

in the grand Museums far from very far

shreds of gold are softly

flaking off

the icons and the stars

and certain planets

not yet born

in the grandiose Museums

Spring on the avenues

all the trees are flowering

my bills are past due

but I can go

on mild days or through snow

to see brilliant paintings from

the very long ago

in a gallery of dreams

even if I have to

just eat green beans.

I know the tides will turn

toward everything beautiful

I ever learned.

mary angela douglas 6 september 2022;27 february 2023

THE GOLD HAS BEEN SIFTED, THE SAND REMAINS (REVISIONS OF THE BEST TRANSLATIONS)

  

in the old faery tales in the best

translations with the rose and the lily

the phoenix embossed covers

with the woodcuts or something by Rackham

who turned any lock to that elusive kingdom

inside out

so easily as if he made the master key from

the winds invisible or from the Dream

formidable

Dore to Dante, so elegantly tempestuously

portrayed or for Cervantes the ways through

the tangled woods toward Infinite Light

the quests of Arthur laid to rest

the disenchanted Knight and his squire

the early or late interventions disabling

the Dreamers

well, in those stories now you will find

a something refined and inexplicably edited

out, sifted out gold to our detriment

of the modern versions as if the moon

were clipped from the skies, the clouds

turned silvery, the Rose from the dessicated 

Heart removed, the emeralds from Oz

the songs full of dead larks

that is the warning elliptical as it may seem

to the attentive and lucidly dreaming reader:

it's not the nightingale of artifice you want

the trees pruned back as though they were

never in blossom 

when you are facing death or death in life

but the real one

yet

so men cried with Christ on the cross to

Pilate's slippery question

whom shall I release to you then:

oh no. not Him.

give us Barabbas.

or as Hans Andersen said

we have been made to drink sand

from a teacup, and call it good;

the texts have shriveled to a shred

of little consequence on earth.

mary angela douglas 6 september 2022;27 february 2023

O TO USE THE WORD SERAPHIC IN A SENTENCE OR SOLELY ON ITS OWN

Of all words I think I would choose the word seraphic

on a day of gloom, in a trying moment, spurned

a cloud wrapped in silk an instance of light snows

seraphic, a knowing of something beyond all consolation

my soul is enamoured with...seraphic

only the one word uttered like a pearl

as in the old fairy tale when the lady of virtue

spoke only in pearls where the envious could

speak only in toads

a word breathing out serenity

for the child, sick at home, in a featherbed

but with a silver flame

a lasting word an everlasting word

shielding from danger

an exquisite word

dropped like an opal from Heaven

into dire distress.

mary angela douglas 25 february 2023

THE PERSON I WANTED MOST TO BE

the person I wanted most to be

was happy only because God is real

is it possible there are stars?

to always be shocked by this

in a good way;

that I got to be here

for any amount of time

where, periodically there are flowers.

I didn't want to be famous

just to carry the feeling of home

with me like a turtle in its shell

living very well not in any kind of race

happy with the wind in the trees

just the thought of Space

the inconstant blue of streams and lakes

loving the earth and the air after Spring rains

the person I most wanted to be

would never grow tired of thunder

for how many things are a wonder

how wonder can never cease

grateful for time, for being

not asking for more

seeking the light in even small things

knowing it is there.

mary angela douglas 25 february 2023

AN EASTER REMINISCENCE

we will peel again the gold foil from the small chocolate eggs

or the ones speckled robin's egg blue

my sister and I

wearing our lace trimmed dresses for Easter

with ten thousand it seemed like, crinolines

and think of the dogwoods blooming

for Jesus in the garden released from the tomb

the dogwoods we see in the yards of our neighborhood

the azaleas, on the drive home from Church

we are small

we think God put the lilies on the altar for His son Himself

and this is how everything comes to pass eventually

even one memory of the easter eggs we dyed ourselves with

Grandmother

being found in clumps of grass or always hidden in the flower

beds

by our Grandfather, even one moment

just thinking of that now

brings an inrush of joy so surpassing sweet

and Mama in my dream whispering He is risen

wake from sleep, wash the sand from your eyes

from the dreamkeeper    

I imagine the sky

painted in all the pastel colours

as if the skies were sherbet

and Easter at home

the wedding party of the ages.

mary angela douglas 24 february 2023

ALMOST THUMBELINA IN MY DREAM

sparrow sized, almost, she thought

but not really

Thumbelina in my dream

carried a red taffeta dress in an acorn

a red velvet jacket with crystal buttons

just for safekeeping.

who knew when there would be an occasion

to resemble a rose

even in exile, rejoicing. tarantellas!

with her wisp of a smile

she peered out the sugar egg window

amid the icing flowers

pink dots on green stems

would the winter ever end

and sang to herself

Nordic lullabies

be still.

the frost is worrisome

but not for the daffodils

small silver coins, the moon and the sun away

hope is a puff of summer breeze remembered

knowing its never really

not ever, really THE END.

mary angela douglas 24 february 2023

HE SALLYS FORTH

how do the earth and the skies drift together

what if they drifted apart

what if the currents that move the seas

suddenly went to the stars

what if the green wherever seen

suddenly floated to dust

what if the dream inside a dream

migrated to the world of musts

I will keep vigil through the night

quixote to shadows said

so that the earth and the purple sky

not into infamy shall be led

the jewel of my mind affects me so

the blinding flare of the shields

should I in all my lone laments

develop a will of steel

fables in books have held me

as an infinite mother her child

God of all hope

forsake me not

days of the bright and mild.

mary angela douglas 24 february 2023

THE CORRIDORS BLOOM WHEN YOU'RE GOING AWAY

 

the corridors bloom when you're going away

from the schools that ruled you, night and day

and you step sprightly into the light

and cast no shadow and you take flight

away from the regimented free for awhile

breathing in flowers again a child

to read for pleasure and not to do sums

or make of learning a silly tin drum

to rat a tat tat far into the dawn

so for the moment to understand

the soul learns joy in what is at hand

chosen in freedom the beauty that's read

because you love it

and not from dread.

mary angela douglas 24 february 2023

SPEAKING ENGLISH (REPOSTED ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF JOHN KEATS DEATH)

 SPEAKING ENGLISH

to the green memory of the English Romantic Poets

(REPOSTED ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF JOHN KEATS DEATH, FEBRUARY 23 AT THE AGE OF 25)

courting the fair lost wonder of the skies the ghosts of English poets stood out in the rain wondering what happened to the world edged all around in gold; edged all around in gold, who bartered what for what and keyed it all down so softly, by degrees, in the pearl smudged day we hardly noticed when the Word left glistening, alone as though it had never been spoken into green. let the fairy ferns bend down their fronds through these wrecked dells, now out-of-the-way and the musk roses sigh in the Borderlands that even light dwindles, dividing itself into itself and praising nothing. O eglantine! O mild musk roses blowing… brief Tyrian clouds above the foaming cliffs were mine, but they swept by my childhood's aching that denied-not real enough, was said. leaving me nothing more to say at school but to hobble on, ever-after with the clipped birds from my hocked fairytales their scissors sawed part-through I'll never be real without them- who wants to be baked inside a very tasty gingerbread by the witchy experts stealing the names that color the soul- this has always been oh my little little child. pretending to grow wiser you'll escape even further into the woods of gold and silver embossing- pure silence gathers stars. and treasured there you're a better country without bitterness… this is the part of the story where you disappear, like a pearl in the pearl of mist or cloud still owned by God and safe from lies. It shall be so. till the day you can come back with all the light-rescinded years, the hollowed out rinds of suns and snows, the wayward sparrows glinting in the shadows not in vogue Oh God what's singing for Or speaking- If it isn't this: to brand on the wasted heart incessant amazement- to be leased by God. you'll wake to wonder, too, so all- at-once to see each drowsing castle in familiar mists of rose: the small house in the clearing brimmed with Christmas lights, the bright fields sown of the full-throated music, you did not disown- mary angela douglas 11-12 december 2011

RISING NOT TO THE OCCASION OF THE KING SPENT DAY (REPOSTED)

 rising not to the occasion of the king spent day

forgive us, Father, that we stumble on our way

over so much gold in the soul of everything

You have made

and utter dark proclamations.

what have we done

with the regal nights

that you have offered us in the purple of your stars

bleeding beauty by beauty from a vaster twilight

than we can comprehend who end

what you would only begin

oh why take flight from Divine love

so duly articulated;not to feel at all

so that the bells cry out, cathedral stung

and peal with desolation?

who can defend us now

at the borders of the ruined countries

of our hearts

who call light dark,and marr the universe

of your sighs and borrow not what you would more than lend

but only steal

and do not, do not make amends.

mary angela douglas 14 september 2022;23 february 2023

THE POINT OF ALL THIS STUDY (REPOSTED)

  

riders may read what they may read

charging the sun on invisible steeds

riders may read.

riders may read behind the lines

facing the Enemy time past time

falling away but only to rise

only to rise...

long were the years

when we could see

all worlds before us as we read

nearer and nearer and half past dead

dodging our fears in clouded scenea

still in our visions green as green

more like the Dream we read to Dream

till in the Brighter light we see

Christ incarnate in word and deed;

read in his Face, Eternity.

mary angela douglas 15 september 2022;23 february 2023

POSTCARDS FROM OZ

I wanted to write a poem called Postcards from Oz

but who would send them to me

I wondered, grasping at straws,

the Scarecrow?

vaguely I remember in one of the books in

the continuing series by Mr. Baum or Ruth P.

I believe the scarecrow did become

for a while the magistrate of Oz

but I never knew him that well

only, mostly what was in the movie

perhaps someone made a mistake in the address

then I will go down to my mailbox on a desultory day, yes

in the dead of winter would be best

and find to my surprise a tinted postcard

well you know, you could have guessed

tinted green

now the problem is

what will the postcard say

Oz is going away?

I am going, too

in mystifying handwriting

I will leave the problem to you.

mary angela douglas 23 february 2023

EXPLORING THE WEST IN MY STICK HORSE DREAMS

exploring the West in my stick horse dreams

I gallop not so swiftly over the prairies

and sip from the cactus pear new starlight

I am free to arbitrate a lasting peace

for the Comanche, the dreaming tribes

as free as a person not so good on horseback ever can be

with my stick horse trilby with the rubied eyes

set in her felt pieced head,

her silver pink reins...

I sing all the folksongs we ever learned in grade school

like the lone prairie, and the drinking gourd

and oh it's true that I am never bored

with making bad coffee every time

to drink from a rusty tin cup and sup on

canned baked beans

and know that everything is fine

thanks to retro tv

among the Ponderosa pines

you may make fun of me

and say its a foolish thing for

a grown person to do

but you dont know how lovely it remains

to pretend I am

the horsewoman of the Plains

and tag a long happy on the wagon trains

with the scripts so refined

safe from the blizzards every time

the code of the West is mine o mine.

mary angela douglas 22 february 2023

ONE DAY EMERGING FROM THE ROSE THICKETED CASTLE (REVISED)

 

 

one day emerging from the rose, thicketed castle

the troubled sleep

may we emerge into the mild and wild orchid daylight

with a half shell moon still grazing the skies

all brambles gone

and find to infinite surprise 

there is no bad news forever

and all Kingdoms reprise

the glory of the first beginning

when God touched our eyes 

and this was Seeing, Being, Dreaming, Alive!

and we are free, washed in the jubilant bells

delivered from all spells by Jesu, Christ, redeemed

free as the green of grass

the blue of sky 

in a child's first colouring book

free to arrive at the sepia toned train station

ticketless, timelessly all in an  outpost's dream

into the mainspring of happiness of everything 

specific as the amber of our tea,

as the endless holiday clatter of our sprigged china

and the inexhaustible larder of jam filled pantries

and each will sing without needing to be 

famous for it

or fly with an iridescent wing

with no edgy expectation

into again the deep woods solace

with diamond clarity

seeking no prey; no need to outdistance anyone-per se

under no icarian, no feckless sun.

in a joy brimmed day asking nothing of anyone

the telegraph relayed:

all battles won.we are coming home.

mary angela douglas 22 september 2022;22 february 2023

IN AUTUMN I DREAM OF GUTENBERG (REVISED)

for Jack Johnson, my linotype operator, newspaper jack of all trades Grandfather who worked for his father's newspaper in Prescott, Arkansas and who died at age 29

 

I too like Gutenberg longed to hammer words into gold

into gold, saffron, the scarlet, violet of maples leaved and

leaving,

to polish the mirrors into flight reflectng the light of the

saints and souvenirs, chimerical albums

to leave even so faint traces of my own existence here

perhaps one pearllike tear admonishing not the one flower in 

a wilderness pressed not into a book

one modest blue stone or atomies

bearing like amber the slightest wavering of the fern

and to enamel lightly, sprightly on the earth the memory of

clouds in a time of drought

seeking to win, where yet, I only begin

and yet I dream it so

the moveable type of wings

the typography anointed

in all the colours of the sun to run the prism through

the handiwork of the mourning Dove on such a loom

to publish to the air only what I dare

and to let God pick up as a fond child

the somewhat phoenix ashes, and renew

the tattered heraldry

of what remained to do

the wild rose music left unscored

and yet it is enough for me and you

itinerant scribes no longer inscribing

I heard him almost whisper with a goldsmith's yearning

born out of his time

to set the type

illuminated come what may in after Mays

compositor at cost whatever we have lost

or to vanish with the missing page

posterity cannot find.

mary angela douglas 3 october 2022;21 february 2023

IN REMEMBRANCE OF J.M. BARRIE

somewhere there is between the daylight and dawn

Wendy will come back

to sew all the shadows on

for it has become a blind world

that knows no twilight now

only a vestige of beauty.

not even the flickering of  the old names.

his dream flights remembered

Icarus will not drown

nor the schoolchildren to higher rmathematics be solely bound

a way will be found to cast off anchors

once more into the sea foam of clouds

so raspberry and azure at the same time.

the street lights will yield to the stars

no longer will we be barred from what we knew most gloriously

in the twilights blooming

of lavender composed

in the music the music 

that never has grown old

resisting all commands

neverland cannot sleep

nor bring the curtain down.

mary angela douglas 20 february 2023