Mary Angela Douglas Poems

if I could have written on an endless sky
the beginning and ending of your fraught and mysterious syllables
and only in clouds that I knew would fade
Poetry, still I would have tried.
...

let the moon be bright and clear in my poem about the lilacs
though I know so many have written, have sung about them before

still they have not written my lilacs into their poems
...

to William Shakespeare and all the others..., to Poetry itself in all its finest hours

keep watch on the waters under the bridge
lest floodtide reach again that ridge
...

EPILOGUE

for Ilya and Emilia Kabakov
...

[once more, to The Brothers Grimm]

how marvelous it seemed to you then
the cobbler asleep at his bench
...

standing before the space where
poems may come
you dodge the thrift of
...

not a poem, but just a heartfelt message to you:

I wish everyone a Happy New Year 2022.Sometimes I feel worried: what will the New Year hold? So many troubling headlines. Stepping out into the fresh snow of time what will we find? I hear the Holy Spirit inside me say: YOU WILL FIND AS IN ALL THE OTHER YEARS OF YOUR LIFE THE COMFORT AND THE STRENGTH AND THE JOY OF GOD WHO HOLDS TIME AND ETERNITY AND EACH OF US IN HIS STRONG HANDS. Fear Not, the Christmas angels sang. FEAR NOT.
...

(for the installation artist Ilya Kabakov, on a corner of his sky)
(and to Emilia Kabakov, who I think, surely must BE his angel)

if he paints the moon in a corner of the sky
...

nothing in the news for days.
Ilya Kabakov passed away just last Saturday
no obituaries anywhere
that I can see on a google search
...

for Ilya and Emilia Kabakov

one crystal angel
...