My Personal Library, Drifting Apart Again Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

Like continents drifting apart
My lost books
The ice cracks on the floe
And half is going away from the other half
And friends long cherished will not come back, I know
My lost books have departed.
How many times formed and reformed
The glittering configurations
Of the books I loved, that angels led me to
In a time of renunciation to prove my love for God
I turned my narrow shoulders away
From them all.
And then my coral reefs grew and grew
And I was a happy dreamfed mariner among them
Then came the disconsolate years when I thought it all smooth
And one by one I sold the most beautiful for pittances.
Then fortune renewed, I bought them again
Out from a strange captivity
Suffered sometimes excoriating words
From those who couldn't understand
How one small person could be so selfish
To accumulate them, or landlords quibbled
They're a fire hazard
Or just looked very annoyed.
Now again I have to abandon so many.
Like a beaver I will repair the breach
The grim fairytales reaped
And after death, return a day or two to say
I loved them all, each volume seemed so full of grace
And now, I love them still.
And better than I did on earth.
mary angela douglas 23 march 2024