Herr Rilke's High School Reunion Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

oh to the drill and the picking apart of the heart remembered

at dinner is poetry's orphan picking at his food

impossible to imagine the perjuries

in the drawing room

where pupils learn manners

and how to cloak mockery

beneath it all. fall in.

its the fall of the year

he walks the footpaths endlessly

and the leaves are with him sympathetically

and the roots of trees

the stars, far from military occupations.

robot student expectations

click heels. it comes again

endless misery to the dreamer

perched as if before death

on an unseen branch

that weeps in the constellations

only for him.

mary angela douglas 13 september 2019