Circumspect In Velvet, In The Train Of Her Long Thoughts Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

circumspect in velvet in the train of her long thoughts
no one imagined, perhaps a princess
lady of the hours of the miniatures of flowers
she kept turning page by page in a honied

light, if not, forever, and the moon over her right shoulder.
it's hidden in the seams of no castle left on earth
the way she dreamed in astronomical conjectures.
really you may say, in all that quaintness?

but I say how can we know her thoughts
who only see her now in dim portraits
with a lilied smile, in moss velvet with
mysterious sleeves;
we who consult the historians
who only remember the wars.

mary angela douglas 27 november 2013; ; 18 october 2023