Forgive Me If I Remain Ignorant Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

forgive me if I remain ignorant

of the routes of silk, of spices

of the rise and fall of the dreaming child



while gathering into my silver baskets

all possible birdsong.

forgive me for vanishing so often



in the schoolroom

or far from the working day

into the reveries



hidden within clay

journeying to the center

of my imagined earth



and overfond of ferns

while they forever whisper

when will she ever learn.



I learned to ask this thing



how can stars be so vast

and the working day so small

so petty as not to be seen



though magnified to unwarranted sheen

forgive me for failing the eye test

on these and other things



Deemed Important by Our Leaders.

the most brilliant, in any room.

what is freedom for sometimes I think



if not to wool gather gold



or like Poe, to contemplate El Dorado

urging the mists forward;

the horses forever mired in mud.



or what is this republic anyway

all republics foundering in their cloudless Day

when they mark a trail far from God.



maybe it's that way, finally,

everything goes astray



but the republic of music

of High and Intractable Song



all possible birdsong and

the heart appeased

if not, nations.


mary angela douglas 31 august 2018