[to Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelstam...]
(and for my Grandmother, Lucy White Young)
once we knew the music of swans,
the silver scrolled.
standing on tiptoe
you see the rose windows;
you can almost reach them.
you love a gardenia stillness;
it is not distilled.
perfume of ivory.
perfume of the palest green.
once we saw through the orchards
in all the paintings:
did they come to life?
we breathed our words
falling to earth all apple blossom.
or inscribed on the winter air, in crystal.
and in the citrus summers, in-between,
we learned the music of swans
so that afterwards, in the long ages,
someone would not forget them.
mary angela douglas 3 february 2015
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem