From Far Away The Visionary Bird Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

for E. Nesbit and her Phoenix

from far away the visionary bird

carried his fan of purple and of gold

the turquoise ringing

and the seeing emerald; his air of regality.

his stare from other realms.

what is it You have made what does it signify

I asked the blank and wounded skies

at the bus station or on the tavern green

where God watched over our demise

the seen and unseen and the subpar

who must be carted out

the bird with so many feathered eyes

how much it has to see

and stand in peculiar intensity on the redeveloped sidewalks

and float into flow chart reality and, misery

strange memo to the shackled in the holy grind

the managers of space and time and those at the exit

interviews as if announcing the slaughtered kingdoms

forever denied and to sigh we have risen,

despite it all and come for the disinherited.

I am the creature tearfully

He could never explain to the angels

to productive mankind and those

not pulling their weight berated

that in all He has made there is this something

out of an enchanted wood we cannot pay for;

and yet it exists

though it's not on the List:

other than and it is myriad

and it is our souls

beyond the fight or flight

or the stakeholder's claim

or the 10 year plans

or the capital gains

beyond an extravagance unnamed, unnameable

not in the budget

we have no way to gauge

a creature that fantastic what it lives on,

on its own dais making its way

through our urbanity, our mockery

and so out of predicted range and sustainability

how can it even exist without our say so oh

if we discount the beautiful

what have we to say

it beggars all plausibility

how could we fetter God this way

in our rubber stamped parades

watching a peacock emerge ethereal

from out of the chilling rains.

mary angela douglas 8 august 2019