Exquisitely, So Beautifully She Lingers Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

for Virginia Woolf

exquisitely, so beautifully how she lingers
in consciousness even her shadow brighter than Light
ever in the maze of her own amazement a quadrille all her own,
immeasurable flight
flaring for awhile in myriad remonstrances, attitudes
the blue green sea stains of her own footsteps in a room
like a seamaid retracing, literary mermaid the possibilities
of life on the shore but looking out to sea
steadfast. embattled, a blue green constancy.
how I wish I wish I wish she had not blown herself out
like a drowned and lavish candle, dear Virginia. Ophelia like
yet candelabra like, of a clear obdurate crystal, prismatic
turning on a stair
between life and disappearances. everywhere one looks
and looks for you again.
surely in the wide mercy of God there is room for you
in your voice that chimes its own language
beats against the current and is gone
yet never gone; haunting beckoning in our imaginations
in a high language looking back on time. transitions
so breakable beaconlike enshrining the vague moon that
asks in gold where you are? you in the music of
the loss of dear ones, a shower of petals in the wind
like a drowned candle rise impeccably again
angel of the household still of poetry
the implacable distances of the years
whom we cannot replace. wayward;
a depth. like the seas.
mary angela douglas 28 june 2023