I Could Weep For Joy Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

the last wick of the blue dusk verging on nightfall
I saw once in a dream in the twilight that precedes
wakefulness

and it seemed to me the angels were saying goodbye
and I was still in my grandparents house in the room
with the taffeta spread, the frost white curtains

the earlier blue of twilight
and I remembered a dress that colour
I wore once with a tea rose

picked from our garden.
there are moments cloudlike
in the silver treasury of my mind

so that despondent angels sing suddenly
though it isn't Christmas
and when I see my face in the mirror then

it seems also lined in silver
like a sudden cameo in the gloom
or a star in the spring evening

when someone is playing the piano
and I could weep for joy.

mary angela douglas 23 september 2018