what if we wrote notes in the snow
here we were when the birds finished the breadcrumb trail
and farther along,here we sat down on a frozen log
consuming the last of the berries
and on a white stone wrote our last testament.
what if the snow froze forever
the trees as well;all in a pale green glaze...
making our permafrost poetry,
Immortal
mary angela douglas 13 november 2020
mary angela douglas 13 november 2020
all mankind is singing even when they are weeping
all mankind is weeping even when they are singing
could this be the way that they teach history in Heaven
to the angels
perplexed by what to do
when buttering the toast in the rain
so then we come to
the lesson on why people love roofs
windows, doors.
do they really make people sleep outdoors
and step over them when they are frozen like sparrows
sometimes the angels step outdoors into Space
because though there is Gracem
there is no crying in Heaven.
mary angela douglas 12 november 2020
I thought about the secret of mending
how we wanted to use the pale blue silk to mend the pink
taffeta perhaps of the doll with the sweet and staring eyes
because at least my sister said then there would be some blue in it
the gown she meant
then maybe the clouds will not break apart
the one from the other in the sky
maybe the earth will spin more like a top
blurring all colors into one
and we wont be scolded for spilling the ink on the rug
in real life we never were scolded for the things we thought we
should be
only for things we could not understand
but mostly it was birthday party all the time
and fun with the dog in every season
and thinking the Milky Way was ours
every time our Grandfather pointed out to us
The North Star...
mary angela douglas 12 november 2020
sometimes the angel comes for someone else
dressed in Florentine colors a message pouring like light through
rosy hands
past the porticoes into the olive grove and to where someone else
waits.for the benediction you prayed for.
why am I blocked you wonder. why is no ave said to me.
you must learn to fold your dreams, to put them away.
squaring all corners;
that breathing is its own reward on the sullen the beautiful earth.
just knowing: HE IS.
your message may come another way. from the north wind
from the ice on the pane some distant morning.
there is the pattern meant for you in the flowers of frost.
your unlikely Spring. and not another's
you will recognize it.
it will call you by name.snow thunder passing over the plains;
do not cry.
mary angela douglas 11 november 2020
blessed are those who shine in secret
who lose the thing they wanted to say in company
and put all words away, only talking to the Lord God
so that they appear to the world stupid
and are lectured by anyone on the street
about even how to tie ones shoes properly.
blessed are they who really hear the wind
who are rapt in divine attention to the least leaf falling
till someone says move along you are stalling
blessed are you when every intention you have is
misread on purpose by those who dont want their taxes
to pay for your being fed even if they are the ones
who never kick you upstairs and who will not wait dinner for
you who hold balls in honor of your stingy caretakers.
let them stare you will not see them.
as Yeats said you think he did
you will see the rose growing in your own heart
the Eternal Rose
blooming and blooming
and you won't tell a soul.
when they scold you for staring off into space,
for being displaced again.
mary angela douglas 11 november 2020
I was there when the gold leaf fell
and the one that was scarlet and gold with a touch of emerald
I remember how that felt. I was there.
early in autumn St. Louis, on the boulevard
the pavements leading from school still unannounced.
even in dreams.
I was there when the gold leaf fell, the ochre one
the one that came sailing and landed before my feet.
it seemed to be singed from heaven. or a sacred script.
ave, on the wind shining and sweet..
it seemed a momentous thing
like an angel, each leaf, a message meant for me
meant for me then and now so many days past.
and still illuminating.
mary angela douglas 10 november 2020
colouring horses in unexpected colours...
later for our reward we will gallop with jeweled reins
through the apple orchards through the pink and cream
drifts of the blossoms and under a strawberry moon
you use too much colour in your story perhaps my sister fumed
until I gave her all the construction paper hearts and her own
red jumbo crayon.
this is fun she said. the horses whinnied. halfway through the mists
of the North Country folksong
coveting sugar cubes and the windfall apples marooned;
the honey butter light of the new mown hay.
mary angela douglas 10 november 2020
(for Judy Collins, singing Joni Mitchell's "Clouds')
to those who suffer from unwritten rules
from made up this instant just add water regulations
because they do not like your face and question
your regeneration think of clouds, mounds of them
ice cream sung and wished for like the song
think of knights in golden mail chivalry when
it wasn't frail think of roses climbing;
you climb, too.
out of the ditch they made for you
wandering off in the conversation
thinking you had left your station.
mary angela douglas 10 november 2020
(tO Hans Christian Andersen)
alas the geese in the fairy tale have escaped and now they have crossed
between the pictured brook and the marshy grasses into some other neverland and I can no longer find them
princess in disguise I was not, will not be and they have fled and every image of them
underground
this is the world we live in now where the ducklings must forego the swans
even the swans themselves find not their reflection in the mourning waters
what is there to say about that this is not a normal news day
though the teletypes clack through the time warp
and they all say my report is inexact
you will sing the notes of the swan perhaps
and they will call you geese even so.
mary angela douglas `10 november 2020
if I could go where the pears brush gold against the bluest sky
where my tablecoth matches
the china is pure white with a pale green border
the house has guardian trees
where the only sound is the breeze and occasional singing
the bells on the wind
I would send for a golden coach and be on my way.
not linger in today where everything is noise even when there is a pause
at the end of sentences. where no one thinks a bowl of strawberries is enough
and to be content with what you make up in your own imagination
and where always something is required something you are never told
so that you always fall short.
I would vacate all premises where just outside the door the hallways roar
with small incriminations even when the neighbors arent home
and go to live at an ice station where only I was taking the readings
in a small igloo lined with fleece with a fine library. and the aurora borealis.
there solitude would increase and rest would be
with dreams or without well,
something even the fairies would envy
from their brigtht dells.
mary angela douglas 9 november 2020
I shall miss forever trees bending in the wind
the sunset light shows, the pearl of dawn
stars scattered across the country night or dew across the lawns
the blue of frost. coming home after feeling lost
the feeling, walking through meadows I have not forgotten.
I shall say goodbye in tears to the moon sailing through clouds
and weaving its gold or silver or its rose o its ivory kingdoms
as if it had threaded its own needle of light on the outside then
the hem of night
the redolence of soil after the rains and the moldering leaves
the stage set of my childhood home that is no more no more my own
and Christmas deeply anticipated;all the sweets;the Crowning Star
the springing sound of any screen door the small rain or the deluge
on the roof so many things I dare not name the drifting snow
when I must leave at last the way it has felt to me drifting through
Time
and dream, on the green and golden earth
on the earth so overcome with beauty despite the waves the cruel
expensive waves
assaulting us now and then. I shall miss and miss again
the whisper of the wind;the scents of pine;the rose and the lilied
Springs. the blue lilac of the heavens
arching over everything.
mary angela douglas 8 november 2020
for Mary Chapin Carpenter, her music
the dew on the rose in the song I heard
the parting of the clouds
the light through the harp that was rippling sound
was mine alone in the deafening crowd.
the song of birds has infused my soul
in a dark time, not a time of gold
the rose in the song is living still
though the road I climb is ever uphill.
mary angela douglas 8 november 2020
"oh what can ail thee, knight at arms..."
John Keats
lamia queen of the world wide prom
if she has three heads or only one
be sure on each is a crown of crowns most succulent
a tendency to draw you in and round you her dire web to spin
blank sparkles in her gaze that's tracking
everything inside her maze;she owns it all
woven ribbons in her topknot;nothing lacking in
the swish of the gown; three lilies, and the closing bell,
the tilt of the head
oh where can mercy be found among the dead
how much she hides
more than the hydra,
Keats in the withered sedge
surmised as he lay dying, ebbing dreams
queen of the prom universal making the scene
oh mesmerism's dower; the fly trap poisonous flower
Medusa's more evil twin
that traps small children in their book of days
and in those eyes on arrogant display
always the calculation rampant wheedling need
for another prize insatiable greed
and a sash to match them
and the darkening sun.
Ave Maria. Kingdom Come.
Spare us from the snakelike ones.
the constricting hour.
mary angela douglas 5 november 2020
there must be though we have never seen
angels with singed wings carrying the souls released
from fire, from earthquake flood
angels with drowning in their eyes
weeping as they fly to lift above
the fractured earth so that God will recognize
those who lost their lives on the bully playground of the world
sometimes I hear the whir of wings so designated
and from the corner of my eye one tear emerges
that seems magnified as though it held billions of worlds
with trees torn up by the roots of birds that sing no more
of birds that sing no more and knights delivered from their quests
who in the ethereal blue.
find their unaccustomed rest.
mary angela douglas 5 november 2020
\
will we dress in cherry velvet there
finding our wishes where we dropped them
the speckled robins eggs that shade of blue
will we have ice cream in every shade and will it no longer melt
no matter how high
the sun gets in the sky and will the snow stay too
even among the apple blossom blooms
will we never cry get spankings
can we eat as much chicken pie as we want
will Grandfather come to pick us up
from dime store revels by the perfume counter
in his pale blue Ford Galaxy 500
while we sing Carols from the Firestone records
or all pile into the car on our way to the 1964 Worlds Fair
and take another tour of it, this time not missing a thing
oh I like to think so!
and that we will win all the emerald rings from the gum ball machine.
and wear our best dresses all Spring.
mary angela douglas 4 november 2020
ca
the christmas light excursions of my past
are myriad and glistening though
there's no one left listening to
my Christmas stock overload of so much twinkling
who knows the heralding I have heard
with all my Christmas ghosts
when it seemed to me in sleep, the most, the stars
chimed like crystal and the sweep of the wind was silver.
still I take comfort as with cherry cordial chocolates
songs of the Magi, dusky and deep
in the fact I know I was there then
I remember the feeling of orange and peppermint together
the uncertainty of weather clear blue and crackling the
icicles on the roof like stalactites, our very own.
I remember home. as no one else now can
how the lamplight looked when you were just outside the door
waiting to go in and stamping your feet (we were like small reindeer
then)
as if the moon had melted there and was content
with the scent of pine or fir decked out.
how could Heaven be more real
than the least flake of red or gold off all that Time
could hold bursting to be told but to whom to whom
I'll say it to the baby in the manger still
to the creche with straw on its floor
who will know before I speak
all that I feel
all that I felt then.
and that I still whisper when Im too overwhelmed to sing
Oh Come. now as then.
let us adore Him.
mary angela douglas 2 november 2020
what if we dreamed of the glass mountains
the golden apples rolling away
what if we left that Age forever;
would the Princess stay
stay in the middle of the story
where we had left her, on our own.
would she find in the beautiful chaos
something bright she still called home
something maybe like a star
guiding the Magi near to far
something rescuing at hand
far and away with the contraband
I have past purple, visions seen
past royal crown a brighter gleam
I see her wavering in the light
past all the victories, all the plights
with the golden apples ripe somehow
I never ever disavowed.
mary angela douglas 2 november 2020
the wrens of day awake and in their music
all they make how often I have been so happy
tilting see saw, touching the clouds happy
seeing the treetops from high up
from the backyard swing and as they arrange themselves
in the hedges dreaming they are ornamental;
somehow the clouds got into my song
the wind through the leaves
the wind through the leaves
if only I could that music make unceasingly
in the wan wan world forlorn
with the small morning glories
of song for its own sake made from
the frail and trembling heart
under it all
raising the flag of its joy.
without fanfare, lilting
lifting the heaviness that was the sky;
the long watch of the night.
mary angela douglas 1 november 2020
lately in my dreams
I find myself missing something
what could it be, a blue moon rummaged,
a lost charm off a bracelet
a tiny hinged piano
or the colour green pale frosted in April
when the mists rise and I think of the Holy Ghost
the fragrance of mown grass.
is it from the past will God merely smile
when I ask, across the wide and the violet waters
is it a ghost ship sailing
and is anyone aboard
try as I may I cant find the shore
I think oh how can I afford this looking at my watch
is it a swatch of rose coloured fabric
can I match it to old china
how can you find the way out of the mine
where it cant be mined it is or was so once upon
sometimes with an arched loveliness like a swan
it floats on transient,just at dawn upon a lake
oh how oh how can I awake
and other times its dappled and it wants to be orchards
white orchards as far as the eye can see
and so that you cannot tell is it winter is it Spring
is it petals or snow
I dont know I dont know
it's whatever I dream and no train is bound there
though I search every car is it a star that failed to bloom
the light that fell in my old room
oh I haven't got the claim ticket anymore;
I've searched all pockets and its ever the same
the pause in the music where there are no names.
mary angela douglas 31 october 2020
can you sell your sorrow and win the grand prize
oh you must try otherwise you wont be a poet in their eyes
so get the meat grinder out and grind up your soul
your heart maybe even your liver
and you will deliver just what the mags are looking for
and oh by then you'll be adored.
what there is left of you.
mary angela douglas 31 october 2020
painting the white roses red had become an obsession
by the time Alice crossed paths with her again
not a single a single creamy bud left in the kingdom
even the moon rust red.
though time is a blur in dreams this time Alice was through
with straightening her seams or being told to
when she already knew they were alright.
let it be night then. let the moon chide the clouds.
Alice will say no name out loud to perjure herself here
she will just disappear in the same blue gown a little altered
with a collar of pearls
thankful, on the riverbank again to have escaped all trials.
in that bent , the carnival mirrored world,
mary angela douglas 30 october 2020
better to speak no word at all however embroidered
than to let one snowdrop teardrop diamond fall
in an envious room
better to be sealed entombed;
let silence flower endlessly instead
and those who lie in wait to
stomp to death one earnest phrase
find nothing there to grasp;
the ghost of language gone;
all utterance ceased
then to prolong
the candle wick extinguished
by those despising light.
rage on;
you will find nothing there.
only the wounded, the incriminating air.
mary angela douglas 30 october 2020
better to speak no word at all howev3er embroidered
than to let one snowdrop teardrop diamond fall
in an envious room
better to be sealed entombed
let silence flower endlessly instead
and those who lie in wait to
stomp to death one earnest phrase
find nothing there to grasp;
the ghost of language gonel
all utterance ceased
then to prolong
the candle wick extinguished.
by those despising light.
rage on;
you will find nothing there.
only the wounded, the iincriminating air.
mary angela douglas 30 october 2020
let me fold into a silver paper
and deliver it to the sky
all the reasons I can tell
for any reason why
lift the latch on a golden locket
gaze at the picture there within
try to remember how you started
off into the october wind
let the curtain draw itself
leave the book upon the shelf
ask the question while you live
pour the honey through a sieve
cast the riddles underground
learn of music
more than sound.
mary angela douglas 29 october 2020
i thought to turn the silver tide
of all the tears that drained mens' lives
but found that I could barely rise
above my own
I hoped to clear the crystal slate
of all the sludge of warring hate
but it was obvious to me
that I could hardly even breathe
the envious air.
such was the world i found outside
of Edens gates o could I hide
from all the scorpion suns that rose
God knows I would; God knows
then on the bitter seas I saw
Christ walking over every squall
and all I hoped to do or say
I found in him I found in him
that very day.
mary angela douglas 27 october 2020
at times my dreams are like silent movies
I think the words I cannot say
for instance, cloud
and a cloud appears with a lemon streak in it
on a lavender horizon
or I think train
and it's already speeding in the other direction
away from me
what can I say anyway
in dream language to myself
I dont already know when I am waking
and the light filters through the blinds
and stray gleams tell me quietly
the snow is on the ground
the stars have fallen to earth.
mary angela douglas 26 october 2020
/
small as the fairy is, she bides her time
thuough Time seems a thing most vast
collecting rainwater in a thimble
to make provisions last
feasting on one wild raspberry the winter through.
and though her house is barely thatched
she will make do
with a coats and clark thread of sapphire blue
stitching the porches down
so what if you cant hear a sound
she plays the flute in any weather
and the sparrows understand
small music, muses matter
the slightest thing on hand.
mary angela douglas 26 october 2020
the children make minor adjustments
soothing the dolls when they feel frightened themselves
singing small songs to keep the fears at bay
learning what not and finally, what to say;
dreaming of snow.
the children don't know what they don't know
that on the fairy tale path the bread crumbs
will be swallowed whole
by the same small birds that sang to them at home
but they go on alone yet not alone
making their small adjustments as the days tick by
farther and father from the green trees side
oh to the soul that has long been in the city pent
my mother quoted Keats to me in one last lament
or some bright amethyst approximation
knowing I would remember
when she had gone
the nightingale, yes, and the nightingale's song.
mary angela douglas 24 october 2020
fpr C.S. Lewis
the beautiful chapter goes on
the one you left unfinished
and the ink barely dried on the page
the one you were striving uphill to say
and with each last breath in a craven wind
we cannot and will not read on earth
because you left in the middle of it
did the pages long to fly out the window the door
to follow you there where no man can reach
or child, wishing on a star
the beautiful chapter goes on somewhere else now
where we cant read it not even in a darkened glass
someday when this is past
and we will have learned new alphabets post time and space
we will look it up and never lose our place in the manuscript
again:in
the finished chapter on Grace.
mary angela douglas 23 october 2020
P.S.This poem was inspired by the phrase "the beautiful chapter goes on' I heard this afternoon
listening to Christian radio, BBNradio.com
my memory's screen door opens to the stars;
there's my Grandfather in the yard
gazing up at the constellations
'That's Telstas, going over us still,'
he whispers softly
his face in the moonlight lined;
no Hamlet's ghost is he
though he whistled when he was worried.
He's not worried now
tending the ghosts of the marigolds
and I am light years from then
though I wish it weren't so.
I wish I could go and turn in my silver flats
in my 12 year old party dress of blue taffeta
and sing him the alphabet or a thousand other things
made of mystery and the beautiful, the blue back speller
but I'm too old for that now or else
he's too young.
younger than I am now
but sitll in the pea green jacket with the fedora
trousers from the 1940s.
tall as any tree
still in love with the Space program
the baseball scores of the Arkansas Travelers.
and shining my shoes for school,
the penny loafers later on, in this nostalgic dream: to a
farethewell,
bright as copper stars.
mary angela douglas 21 october 2020
are we the ghosts of You, the vestiges
that we should flit so dimly lit between worlds
and uneasy;sad puzzle piece! where will we fit
unless we find the puzzle scattered as we are
lost between sod and star
how shall we homeward be
unless we take the train marked Christ
remembering Thee
even if the long journey through we only
stare at the rain soaked fields but then we weep
when coming into view we see we see
intensely green, the welcoming trees of Eden
mary angela douglas `18 october 2020
silver sheep jump over the stile
and I am soaked in moonlight
for a little while this is a dream
and a radio telescope one
or so it will seem to me
back in the sun
counting the taffeta shadows on the grass
ah if only then it were the past
and the corsage moon pinned to the embroidered dark
and I in love with a silver tune
or is it a ruby lark
I cant get out of my heart
writing a pastorale instead
mary angela douglas 18 october 2020.
sometimes the snow falling so softly seemed to me
from my childhood room feathers from Heaven
silent prayers the tears of angels crystalized falling
past lamplight coating the eaves the leaves coating the
ground soft blanketing of the stars like whispers from afar
from you oh Father from you the snows drifting and drifting
the sudden upswing of the wind the snowflakes pressed against the panes
in small and holiday sparkling greeting me, greeting ME
as if they came to whisper peace, little one, and Grace to thee
all is peace under the sun the winter sun the silver on the roof
the holly bush icicicled sleep my child in the downiness of it;
do not awake in sorrow.
mary angela douglas 17 october 2020
mary angela douglas 17 october 2020
someday may it be when we are thrown back on ourselves
left to our own lack of devices
taking depth measurements of the encroaching darkness
that suddenly a nova will shine out from all the other stars
bursting like a crown jewel and be our particular star in its passing
and brilliance
our opening into the realm of light and a voice will say
to us that we cannot translate into words due to its overwhelming
tenderness:
your prayers are heard
your pryers are heard.
mary angela douglas 17 october 2020
I dreamed her in a pale pink dress with one starched petticoat
and a matching dollbaby purse and she has pursed lips too
and is seen from passing cars a teeny phenomenon on the avenue
determined as all get out
inching her way along the pavement and across the old bridge
over the green river and if that isnt the spookiest thing you ever made
up my sister said, I don't know WHAT is
she's walking if you could call it that on bendable legs
and she has rooted hair that never blows in the wind
the crybaby doll what can't she pretend she played with us
too long not to know all the games and there she is in the rain
with a pink parasol
dogs cross the road when she appears
cats skedaddle
farmers take their loads from town and say to the kids
we'll come back next saturday mebbe closer to Christmas
because their horses rear
at the ghostly cry baby
all set to rob the candy store.
the toy store and to get herself
(small as she is)
one tall orangeade.
mary angela douglas 17 october 2020
take the cage with the plain bird the fairy said
and not the one of gold in the jeweled cage
oh yes said the soldier clicking his heels
as the fairy tale road begins to unreel and I am winding the clock
with no face that time cannot erase
but in the critical moment he says ah, but the gold
and the cave is blocked where he will grow old
and the way that opened until then
is buried in rubble and until then I wish my warning
and I warn my wish that all the children may
remember this
its important to listen to what is said
to be in the fairy tale quite well read..
mary angela douglas 17 october 2020
we leave at your door oh Most High
oh Lord do come to our defense
when the pettiness of this world and small cruelties threaten to engulf us;
when we are left high and dry.
when it seems there will be no more springtime on earth.
when it feels there will be no sky
and that the glacial ages will return.
oh Lord come to our defense when we are spurned,
when we are shunned.
whenever it is we deeply feel our orphaned state
and perennial exile while on You we wait
and can no longer measure the distance between
where we are seated and the door
or ascertain if there are prowlers wild coyotes
near
be with us when we quake with fear
because of the barbs and arrows that have flown our way
on many a blue skied sunny day
without us ever knowing why
for the sickness that comes to stay. be our balm.
for the killing storm, our calm.
we know you made the earth to be beautiful.
we remember Zion.
we remember the sound of the harps.
we remember You.
Oh see that we have strung our captivities together
to make a Song, a necklace of bitter stars
that you may know we know
it was never You who wronged us;
let the small tears come
and wash it all away.
mary angela douglas 16 october 2020
Genisis 1:16...he made the stars also.
I think it's so great you don't have to call God's secretary
how is it You have lined everything with light Lord God
so that no matter what befalls us there is still a way home
as if you foresaw every impossible known emergency happening to us
providing the needle and thread, the silver thimble too.
and every war long in advance of its breaking out
all upheavals you have rendered useless by your Glory
by your hidden streams. your indirection.
so that even in our weeping
a provisionary sorrow gleams and
there is something glistening
so that even in your shadow, even if we should vanish from the earth
there is a plum darkness
where a lone bird sings.
mary angela douglas 15 october 2020
the day after the funeral I knew I would never go back
it's not the kind of funeral you can imagine like that
just there are certain instants in life where you know
something you thought was living cant be there anymore.
and you're not the one to bury it
not even to take it flowers.
to make sure the grass is trimmed around it.
at visiting hours.
only a puppet animation.
simulation simulation.
in your mind you think all I have to do
whenever the heartsickness is through
to feel ok again is just to rewind the tape and review
to go back to the days before
but when you go back
the cherabim who guarded Eden
meet you at the door.
you're not in charge of it anymore.
the ground under your feet even the sky has died there.
a nothing you could improve upon
not even an address anymore.
and then it was gone.
the shift in the air your queasiness.
it wasnt autumn anymore
and not yet the lightest snow
it just wasnt anywhere
anyone human was likely to go.
and the light altered everything.
mary angela douglas 14 october 2020
they comfort themselves with silver flecks from the moon
starlight in patches on the evening grass
the wind in the eaves sings this will not last
this will not last
they comfort themselves with the taffy pulling sun
that stretches their shadows until supper comes
the wind in the eaves sings this will not last
soon all summers will be past
they comfort themselves with waves that reach the shore
and buckets of sand and violets galore and with desserts
when they can ask for more
the wind in the eaves and in the strawberry patch
says children children lift the latch
to journey farther than they thought they would
far from the enchanted neighborhood
children children this will not last
the wind sings in autumn and in the winter blast
and later looking down a whitened road
they understand the winds sad code.
mary angela douglas 14 october 2020
