For Lake Wobegon, Disappearing... Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

for Garrison Keillor

the land is going away they cried
let it be Green Ginger's then
not appearing on all the maps

by the wayside fruit stands
at the ESSO Stations where
they wiped the windshields clear

with thick pink paper towels for free
and dished out wintertime's
Goodyear Christmas Carols

oh don't disappear and yet,

goodbye to the land
rising in an apricot apotheosis, dear
its cornstalks like the fiery golden spears

sometimes appearing
in paintings of St. George and the Dragon.
we will miss you when we're walking on

the air that's left
when Beauty leaves the room

or on craters where the apple orchards stood
in white pink radiance cadences of the blessed
and it's not I that have a tear in my eye

or that myriad lakes have all dried up
from ruthless second guessing
for as yet the earth beneath them

mourns in a strange blue clay

remembering-
but that the sum of all things,
mermaids turning to stone

they murder in this world

that find their place again
down God's long
golden road

still fills up my Soul.

mary angela douglas 4 december 2017