For Dylan Thomas In The Dark Blue Dusk, The Dust Of Words Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[for the poet Dylan Thomas, his every word]

as you were singing that the givers of light
would have no end that the green rills
growing greener would furl in waves

about us ever near and clearer from year to year and that the
sun dipped in the clouds down low
would ever arise

somewhere farther beyond your white roads chrism
we forgot that poetry is not prose
and no longer gathered the rose upon rose

the once upons.
now the prismed web breaks apart
and with it the human heart and where

and what and how in Art will the angels come
to trouble the springs again
so that healing descends

when your voice is stilled
when the news is all we know
I cannot comprehend

only that vaguely

blue and darker blue with the dusk
as your disguise the village from afar
you view

and weep for Wales
for all that meant to you.
and we go casting about in sighs

mere ghosts of ourselves
forgetting what you knew.
and that bright words, though few

are wise.

mary angela douglas 24 november 2016