Drifting Into God Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

to Matthew Arnold

to Alfred Lord Tennyson

parrot gaudy, carnival emblematic the stream of human events

we watched over Avalon, Camelot

the faring Fair and thought of this: the hidden life

as on the other side of a mirror recessive, recessional

the nightingale furled music killed despair

the saints and fools for God achieved finally

their very own silence.

which to choose the candled gloom or the rainbow riot

each must choose beyond the news, the collective summing up.that signifies, nothing, really.

swans as they vanish leave a trace

as Jesus did on the Loving Cup

of what has been and of the Return.

we seized our chance for a furtive glance perhaps

and were doomed to litter the knight bled trail.

but saints, they know whose they should be

still seek the Grail,

and where to go even to obscurity or further into woe

it still, it will always come up Gold.

and where far from the madding crowd

as the expression goes

oblivious as snows they are

drifting into God.

mary angela douglas 29 september 2018