Floretti Of The Hidden Stars, Who Has (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

imagined fresco of Giotto at Assisi:
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fioretti of the hidden stars who has

washed you into my heart

that the blue and the gold of you

should not be turned away

from the fine fair fairytale doorstep

swept clean of sorrows.

for all the fairytales are truth

down to the least and finishing detail.

This I learned to say.

let the debris of exile,

castaway, on a ship of no devising

be only the ghost ship sailing away from you,

Beauty in exile,

swan after Christ!

flying through the picture book

picture window with utter transparency

fioretti fioretti I murmured to

children sleeping

to the ghost of their tears

in the curve of your canticle, moonlight;

Your broken silver candlestick still not quenched

though many have thought otherwise:

stringing their Mays like pink pearls

little crystals together and

forgetting the Jeweler.

mary angela douglas 16 february 2014; 8 november 2023