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

THERE IS A PLANETARIUM IN MY HEAD

(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

WELL, ALREADY

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

FOR MY SISTER SHARON IN HER MUSICAL DISPLAYS (REPOSTED)

 

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

 

IN A PRELUDE INDICATING THE WHOLE BALLET

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

OLD COINS I HAVE FOUND BENEATH THE RUINS

 

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

TRANSPOSITIONS

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

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 be dawning

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

NAMING THE SORROW THAT HAS NO NAME

 

gold is the moment then the moment

turns grey

cloud after cloud must I assay

when light is gone

faith carries on

pale is the morning

and the morning doesn't change

the sky distressed

and the blue diamond rain

pours into the streets

with a dreamless refrain

but faith and the music

somehow remain

naming the sorrow

that has no name.

mary angela douglas 29 august 2022

I DREAMED OF ENGLAND RETURNED TO HERSELF (EPITHALAMIUM)

for the English poets, for holy poetry 

I dreamed of England returned to herself
and the bitter knights' reconciliations;
Albion, coming clear in the mists

and the cherry carol branching
and ah, the Dream of the Rood
in jeweled bloom.

I will leap up to God my God
and see the angels rustling in the trees
where once the poet William Blake

fell to his knees and understood
that poetry is certain good
illuminating praise.

the sea of faith is verging in the dark
the ghost poet soldiers mark their place
and turn again homeward in His grace

to the place they loved
the lanes all blossom filled
the lovely strand...

and all their words
are like a field revued

renewed by High Command

with madrigals strewn..

and not excised

la vita nuova, enterprise

from which we dare not turn our eyea

in this high noon in this high noon
where the ancient wounds
burst into birdsong, flower
into the bridal tunes

irrevocably-seeking the Falconer and his gyre

where all had slept as the dew on the briar

forgetting Beauty, neglecting the heart's communion

mary angela douglas 17 june 2017;28 august 2022

ARCADIA, THE WORD IS LIKE A CHERRY LOZENGE

 

ARCADIA, THE WORD IS LIKE A CHERRY LOZENGE

 

Arcadia, the word is like a cherry lozenge on the tongue

or butter rum candies my sister proposed

looking up from the swing sitting idle

 

in the sunlight

peripatetic golden child of music.

and now we're seeking the names of clouds,

off on our pastel expeditions

on picnic grounds, our own backyard

did we bring the coconut cake?

 

and we are far from trouble in the blue isles

sprouting wings and laughing sporadically

in cumulo nimbus, cumulo stratus, cirrus

 

cirrus, circuses in green and the tightrope lady

in pink sequined skirts

and this is our just desserts

 

we say, scooping into the fudge sundaes

or playing in the sprinkler on

hot Arkansas days

 

when the roses boil and grandfather

concocts historic rootbeer floats

the old fashioned way

when we make a wish on the Milky Way

that summer lasts at least until Christmas.

we have his word for it, smiles Grandfather.

mary angela douglas 28 june 2016;26 august 2022;28 february 2023

ON THE DEATH OF JEAN REDPATH, PEERLESS SCOTTISH BALLADEER

 Singer of Scottish ballads par excellence.

[and to my mother, Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas]

"Fled is that music-: Do I wake or sleep?"

John Keats, Ode To A Nightingale]

fled is the dream past dream on the clock of waking;

tulip-cupped the moon where the starry snows are flaking.

when will I awake in the rooms of before, not after?

silver, laughed the trees but they are gone

after song is evensong, afterthought is all,

in pearl bright slippers.

and the sunsets crowd: mere thread 

through the needle of the last hour

shadowing the pear trees in the fairy story

count, king by king and it's away

sigh the milk bright; wept the sailors

in their day, the tuneful days at sea the end of May

unread, wrote the poets in the frost of

windowpanes...the music drifts

and late for lunches wrapped in wax paper;

the jam smudged bread.

these songs in my head 

by these were disconsolate multitudes fed

nebulae, almost cried the child in the crib

with the orange coverlet;

dream, sighed the clouds and took her home;

is it too late for conversations?

that have scattered the cranberry hills,

my heart- where it's all flood tide for the

brides with lilies in their hands:all for Art

and the bonniest;strayed

the songs at her slight command o wavered

on the cusp of lavender and in the purpling dark

she stands, she stood

and here they leave you (all your songs)

and you don't know why yet

where the gold and the silver leaves 

have fluttered fluttered down

unclasping from fairytale branches

that scar these skies...

slirling, the wanderer wandered

and far from the rose red lanes.

the voice of mists may falter:

the Song, remains-

mary angela douglas 1 september 2014;28 february 2023

[last four lines in italics added september 2, 2014;

rev. 9 october 2014];25 august 2022

ENTER PIERROT, LAUGHING

 

ENTER PIERROT, LAUGHING

dusk falls in sepia tones

as it always does in the vintage photographs

but pierrot is a complex subject even so

is he laughing or crying

will you ever know the pinwheel effusions of his summer epochs

his heart that sows white rosebuds

seen from the distance you are sure his smile is real

on closer inspection, what does he really feel

no daguerreotype will ever reveal

is it the sun after rain or the other way round

a hopscotch falling to the ground

a lamentarion of coloured chalks or in pastels

is he feeling very well

he’s out for a walk in infinity

with the beau geste

and his silken shoes on the moon’s crest

or a quaking wire…

what was it you aspired to

 

a long time ago I played La Polichinelle on the piano

no one would believe it now

how I paint in imagination, memory’s gallery

his mauve bright tears

the small smile of redacted years

his penny bright forays…

 

perceptive angels, do what you must

guard his tremors, cherish his dust

I cannot find him.

mary angela douglas 1 april 2021;2 april 2021;23 june 2022;24 august 2022

DRESS CODE (REPOSTED)

weaving the fabric made of clouds

and of the retreating armies-

I whisper to myself, again-

maybe it's not too late

 

for the new-spun colours in my head-

the cherry velvet ravels swept aside; 

a silver tack of wondering again, 

never setting sail-

 

who lost the Age of Rose? 

 

I count the last gold

in the corners

and count again, sweet

polished cotton dresses with no seams: 

the sprigged details

for the diffident day

on a simple field of honour.

 

not knowing the pearl of minutiae

as You do, oh God-

 

I'm turning this inside out to find You-

and twining the dreamy-treadled thread

that keeps on breaking yet still shines

 

in tiny roseate crystals stitched on snows.

 

piano music's sateen on the wind

and seems to disappear, pure lemon verbena.

but sparkles do not dwindle, lily-of-the-valley mine

though I'm so small and slide off of the bench

never reaching the pedals by the chiffoniere

 

where it's always almost spring; 

you won't disturb

the shawl of dappled roses on the doll crib-

 

the childhood fortitude so pear wept

twig by twig, the same; 

 

remember me, and, if not-

the pale green earrings-

my geranium gown...

 

I turn the diamond spackled key

of an antique conversation: 

who lost the pockets of the

children filled, the little sashes made of

white violet velvet

isles? 

 

mary angela douglas 6-8 november 2011

ON THIS DREAMING, FORGETFUL EARTH

 

on this dreaming, forgetful earth

let telegrams go out

from the missing 

in words formed from mist

to say only this

I have not forgotten

I am not forgotten

let the lakes widen on other planets

becoming more luminous and blue

wave on wave without rue

rippled from the stone

of far away wishing

I have not forgotten

I am not forgotten

let the children suddenly stop crying

for a pair of wings

sung to sleep by the silver birds

the birds of dream

in their returning

and under a moon of cream

spilt on the floors of the Unseen

and the Beautiful, still.

that has not forgotten

that is not forgotten.

mary angela douglas 22 august 2022;28 february 2023

FRIED EGG

 

someone once said or words to the effect

the sun rose like a fried egg in the Heavens

I'm paraphrasing or was it the pink yolk

barely glazed over by a winsome cloud

at any rate seemed felicitous to me

to use breakfast imagery at sun up

quite the thing

and of course I regretted I hadn't been the

one to think of it so Im approximating

being the lady in waiting and not the Queen

don't want to be mean or have to con it

considering a sonnet on country fried ham

as the next best thing but I can't quite catch the

zing of it

so I think of farm breakfasts I have read about

in books though never tasted on that scale

eating my toast with currant jam and not a little

pensive

about the whole thing

you know how that goes

kudos to the first one who said it.

probably Humpty Dumpty just before the fall

when a meaner poet pushed him over the Wall.

mary angela douglas 21 august 2022

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