Losing The Beautiful Language Tear By Tear Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

do we live, absorbing the language of the beautiful
or hide under stones
fleeing His presence

in monotone content to get by
devoid of colours and all the whys
wherefores stashed

ccnforming to conform; avoid the lash
or at least, the gossips
demurring to be born and

saying no peacock grace
over the rainbows coded in the waterfall of tears
for all the listless years


not to understand
they skewed your music, being proud
where His footsteps bled into Space

am I allowed
given a trace of former majesty now
the little glow children try to replicate

in words or something
I want to say oh if I may
kicked out from job to job

at times, from place to place
even then
I don't know how, I didn't

to live discarding the beautiful language
or do we go on, filling in the blanks, a blank ourselves cast down
by every miscast word

that calls us out of place
obscuring the seeing Him face to Face
we were born with-

because the only thing we've learned
from all the jobs we earned is

a heart beaten down by clouds
and how to be afraid.


mary angela douglas 25 november 2018; rev.23 january 2019