As The Emperor Lay Dying Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

They threw their darkling shadows
Over the Renaissance, Shakespeare
The white roses in the fairy tale
That wept snow as the Emperor lay dying
The voices in the wind
I had come to know in childhood, asking
Oh why do the blue waters mourn.
Why does the light suffer so
I asked my angels
And yet
My room is full of sunbursts
And a stained glass radiance
Bursts in to say
It seems this way that your rose kaleidoscope
they have shattered
But there can be no eclipse of beauty
Only the vague murmuring against it
With maytime shining all around us anyway.
mary angela douglas 28 april 2024