For Those I Tried To Find (Third Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

for those I tried to find but then the way doubled back:
the cornstalks rose above the roiling fields
the house we knew with the little porch

disappeared and ah, alack,
all trace of every summer thing I knew.
I tried to find through thickets of the years

the old castles

and wept while slogging on
that in such disarray, cruel storms removed
the hay pitched sun.

where roses blew,
now there were stinging nettles...
they have torn my only heart

came the cry suddenly
out of the dawning dark

bending my back under the gloom
ill showing that what was once most fair
must still be there so far

from view.

are you alive? I call to the fairy tale statues
under enchantment, bright as the singeing air:
are you alive?

yet there's no answer there

mary angela douglas 11 may 2015 rev.27 july 2017