I Will Erase The Clouds Thought The Child Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

why have they raised again
the towers of our distress?
raised to be razed.

(a voice offstage...o)

I will erase the clouds,
thought the child
that there will be no rain.

the floods came just the same.
and emerald tinted hurricanes
in colouring books remained;

the floods of all the years
appeared in shades
of the arctic blues

the greens the colours
of snow blindness and the gleams

but you will hear the ice begin to crack
and feel the North Wind at your back for real-
and fissures for which, My God

there are no words.

there's no going back, they say;
I'm not so sure.
pure towers in a storybook land

may long endure
after we've disappeared.
(or seem to, from the world):

crating up the sidewalks where
our childhood shadows grew.
what you can lose

God can unfurl;
made of the Mother of Pearl:
angelic windings of the stair,

the vanished kingdoms,
kept elsewhere
beyond the destroyers.

mary angela douglas 10 may 201516 march 2016