Knowing Better Doesn't Solve It Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

what is more divinely opulent than the red

of a maple leaf as it skitters before you

on the path



or on the pavement

on the way home from school

with that apple tang blue chill



in the air feeling as if

there were too much sparkling in God

and he had to reveal it



whether he felt within him to do so

in that moment or not

and I am the child or I was, I have not forgot,



the one caught in that instant

as I reach down in my plaid dress

to gather it in



to keep that colour alas

was always a something

not meant to come to pass



why then do I still feel

the need to collect each leaf

dancing to the ground,



each Ophelian leaf

incapable of its own distress

as Shakespeare wrote of his heroine.



Shakespeare wrote in gold

though he wasn't sure of that

a something imperishable



and somehow, it has become imperishable

all that he wrote though he thought

his thought would be melting monuments.



the rich red leaf is even more finely composed

yet vanishes each to each.

why then do I feel



no matter how many autumns old

this compulsion to save it, them,

as if it could be so.



no matter how much I know

to the contrary

of what is possible.


here on earth.


mary angela douglas 16 may 2019