A Silence In Heaven Broken By A Geograpy Lesson Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

the swan continents break apart

I read from my geography book

in a dream I can't figure out at all

what does it mean: the swan continents

or there is a story by Isak Dinesen

in Winter Tales I'm sure

because my copy has the illustration on the cover

etched in purple of the two childhood sweethearts

drifting apart on a floe of ice that's cracked

maybe the crystal world is cracked

and a thousand thousand rainbows seep

from all the destined fault lines

into the deeps of Space

but I read slowly aloud in Heaven

from the text and next to it a map in pink and green

in Cyrillic handwriting

the swan continents broke apart

but even now they gleam

mary angela douglas 1 march 2023