Bluebird Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

to Maurice Maeterlinck author of The Bluebird

there is a soul in light you said
and blue birds nestled in the folds of night that you may find.
why then are we still weeping on the shores so near the floods

that took it all away

before we learned to carry it all inside from
kingdom to kingdom,
and always?

In the Land of Memory dear Shades of the long ago
fall away, beseeching, please turn aside down this
folkloric lane, won't you?

we'll have bread and cherries today
under late summer trees, or
toasted cheese on a fork

near the winter hearth and bowls
brimful of cream or is it dream in an Alpine spring
and then, dream more, , ,

a history made of lead weighs down on the heart too
imperceptibly so that we do not know we do not hear you

rustling the raspberries.

now they will slam the door on you
as if you were a cheap peddler
if they even see you at all,

stamping with a modern library's stamp:
"DISCARD".


But I can see the shine of something still not dead
all made of fantastic speaking twined
from a rubied thread
children leaving home may still find, sometime,
in the woods again

in golden gazing up or
whenever they spill the sugar for the Tea
imagining they are grown-up now, irretrievably-

they may remember suddenly,
exactly why they came
and, like a flash of something brilliant
in the world they only think they see-

Who sent them

mary angela douglas 3,10 november 2012