Letter To My Former College Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

now when I write you

you are so formal or so contained

if you answer at all on your facebook wall

is it because I am no longer a prospective student

seeking a catalogue to catalogue all the reasons why

I should be in love with your granite architecture forever

the way the little tulip tree blossoms by the quadrangle

covered with sudden snow

the way snows sweep past the lamplight

seen from a dorm window at night lit up as with angels.

those things make me weep when I recall them

or how I listened tenderly to Mendelsohn's violin concerto

as recorded by a friend.

or read Rilke till dawn.

I lived there then. and every inch of ground and space

was blossoming with the possibilities of learning something

absolutely

golden, something rarified even holy; understood in old amber

filtering Dante's several suns or

at any moment, coming around the corner to see

Quixote in gentle poverty

Dulcinea near the tower bell.

and all the Remembrances Of Things Past.

What hell is this that now when I speak

or whatever I ask

there is no one who remembers me

and they are caught up in the sweep of sweeping

the Image, Brand up off the floor

where freaks like me have perhaps littered it

with overemotional reminescence

you are somewhat embarrassed by aren't you;

you with your new crops now.

crop this from the picture if you can.

in april or may remembering a poem I wrote one day

under a tree of great and white pear blossoming

my ghost will come to stay resolved in her ancient quest

fluttering the pages of all the books in the library.

and by infinite starlight. blessed.

mary angela douglas 4 may 2020

P.S. I remember I read Rilke on my own; he wasnt in the curriculum nor was Dante. Whom I also read on my own. Yet. Reading Rilke and Dante THERE on my own underneath the flowering trees was extraordinary. Remembrance of Things Past I read due to a casual reference by a professor. It too is meshed with the beauty all around me there, on the college grounds in that particular time and space.