Folger's Theatre April 4,1988 8 P.M. Washington D.C. Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

FOLGER'S THEATRE APRIL 4,1988 8 P.M., WASHINGTON D.C.

for the Polish-Ukrainian poetess Irina Ratushinskaya, of eternal memory and beatitude born 1954; died July 5,2017

why doesn't her suffering show
I should have thought as she read
the winged things she wrote in a hole

between beatings for three interminable years
like centuries...from age 29 sentenced for 7,
for 6 poems...and to be frozen alive.

but what did I know
what had I suffered to compare
but I was so happy then to hear

and in my summer dress of snow
someone this back from the dead
that close though so sleight of build

to the poet warriors of heaven
so merry and so bold yet tenderly
she held aloft as if with only her small hands

that had warded off blows,
the trembling skies of Poetry as I knew them then
while we passed from hand to hand the dead sea scrolls

her tiny writing on cigarette papers disclosed:
the very ones composed in SHIZO and smuggled out
oh who could break that spell and I held onto them

as long as I could until the others looked at me: let go
not wanting to say that out loud
how could I, how could I let them go

how can I understand; that I was there.
breathing the same air, who had so far to go.
from the Capital as I knew it then.

she read in Russian in a milk and honied voice
camelia faced and like a child, the youngest one
her eyes like black cherries

the theatre was so still we held our breath

to keep her from slipping we thought
in that hushed air
her translator making it clear to us

that words may fly above all else on earth
that visions cannot die. that love sustains.
that poetry remains.remains remains.

I looked at her and yet I could not see
my eyes blinded with tears at such a mystery
incarnated, the will to ever be in love with Spring

with Christ, never to be deterred
with everything, with Igor standing in the wings
and in her prison dreams

willing her strength
such truth between them lies
I closed my eyes

to such young souls streaming
with joy with joy
having found land; after a sea of hells

all my notes, attempts at notes abandoned
with the tears streaming into my cupped hands.
I wanted to bow my head

perhaps I did in that small crowd
overcome with veneration
then the april hour was gone

then briefly I shook her hand
thank you for the poetry, I said
with tea party manners

and filed out silently and stunned.
and that as they say was that.
so many years ago that evening

at Folger's Theatre

I felt my heart transfixed,
on a different plane and then today
I found that she had

died last year
Irina the youngest one
in summer beautiful summer

in a seahorse hour turned pale

in Moscow's summer and in her husband's arms
when the trees were green.
when the trees were green

at Tsarskoe Selo and in Pushkin Square
the trees were green
and Christ was nigh

the trees were green
they whispered to me:
Irina Ratushinskaya...

mary angela douglas 31 march 2018