How They Have Forgotten Your Orchid Words Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[to poetry when it was called poesy (and was rosy) or:
some posies for poesy]

how they have forgotten your orchid words
the ones lined in gold.
the mother of pearl.

we get by with the insides of shells.
the fishboned rainbow
left on the platter.

I was in love with your orchid words.
I am not happy at their disappearance;
with the pretenders to the throne

who murder the adjectives of your glories.
your rose-limned stories...

still, in the piles of discarded books
at the modern libraries
I take solace.

opening the page
to your sunset's glow
your bayberry candles Christmas-lit

in the high holy days of Literature.

mary angela douglas 6 february 2015