‘it will flame out like shining from shook foil’
-Gerard Manley Hopkins
(for Dr. Robert Joseph Connelly, UIW, San Antonio, in memoriam)
this is for the Word made whole
for the poetry-riven skies
for the strength to recognize a lie
for the breakable language
unbroken still
by the bent word
built for profit,
not for truth.
this is my sigh in the flowering
air for the glass blown disappearing act of
stars in the May apple regions
appearing,
disarming, chiming in the winds
that only angels bring
the pause (finally, in excoriating speech,
-your very own-)
where you collect yourself
if not your things
from one last day at work
or home
picking your report card up
in June from the ghost school;
for the ghosts of
cornbread heirlooms
dripping with the honeycomb;
for afternoons of strawberries
and cream –
for the Holy Ghost dressed in pale green
for the whole world seen
through stereoscopic Disney,
Christmas stenciled windows;
the least view of small
pink flowers bordering the sidewalk
goodbye…this is for God
who hears and sees the
honey tinged questions’
finding fault
so that permanent records
continue to reflect
your waywardness in
never having the exact
amount of change
this is for the second you feel
you have to leave with no reprieve
the loved home, the iced teas
so much earlier than you dreamed
with only three dresses packed
in a
walnut, the Lord’s prayer on a dime:
fixing the hall clock in your memory
the jelly glasses
and the willow-ware, the brightness of pennies
over other denominations…the sherbets, lime
the eventimes;
repairing your chiffon shadow
on the way with your personal sewing kit
to honor those who raised you
and read you fairy tales
as though from great distances.
this is for
no safe-houses on the horizon
least of all the yellow brick one
across the street
where children climb trees
and eat the whole summer
an entire orchard of homemade
peach ice cream…
this is for the deep-starred journey
undertaken
for the fools’ errands-
for the straw that will never
everland turn into gold
no matter how the Rumplestiltskins scold
listen to me:
questionable friends
make the journey a million times
harder and give you the wrong
directions to the castle so
that you never find
the singing bird.
this is for trudging on alone
for crossing the borders on your own
not looking back even when
the person who meant to come with you
changes their mind at sunrise
then runs to tell on you
like we were back in school
this is for living
like the silence on the moon
and soon and soon
far from the living room
you will withdraw from a tiny shell
at the exact right moment in the interview, a
shining like shook foil shaken-
three dresses of compressible splendor
kept against the rain and
wrapped in violet tissue:
the one of vivid stars
the one of ornate flame
the one of cloudless cloudless blue
and, as if on cue, the opal angels move-
scattering the inquisitors;
settling old accounts
in scripts of gold
with not one scintilla of
asking anyone for permission.
for you were watched over
even while crocodiles wept
my child my child at
every nightmare’s exit
by the Word unbroken:
by music heard in the wake of angels,
by undetainable Light…
mary angela douglas 30 june 2009 rev.7 december 2016; 27 january 2018; 3 june 2019
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