Cloisonne Rose On Your Field Of Blue (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[to a lost brooch]

cloisonne rose on your field of blue
I lost once in the grasslands of summer
and then the trees wept crimson suddenly and

they wept gold
when I looked for you among the leaf drifts;
how chill was the air

and no witnesses.

oh cloisonne rose
you cannot lose your petals there
whatever crack in the universe

has swallowed you up.
the little pink stars, the blue ones
shine for you, thinking they are sapphires;

twinkling at your mystical swirls of
fuchsia on blue blue blue
with a tinge of cream from the moon?

thinking you are some other sky in miniature:
your vintage freshness lost in time, oh
who will speak your language there

in the nests of the small squirrels;
in the snow barrows far from here

mary angela douglas 18 february 2015; 18 november 2023