On Reading Again His Verses Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

ON READING AGAIN HIS VERSES


(for William Butler Yeats)

again at the crossroads of the Celtic Twilight
I make alas, again my all too temporary home
hearing again as though they were my own
these verses of love outworn as a clouded
an insistent
travailing breath
on the pane of an Eternal wandering.

how shall I prolong the moment
when words were this beautiful unto Death
and when the heart that sang them understood
all the ways of the enchanted wood
and love that faded not with Time.

what have you got in your lost unaccountable
unaccountable pockets
oh modern, postmodern age,
in the Greatcoat of your muted literacy
in exchange for this
I ask with the moon in my wrists
till the specter of that Rose that Rose of all the world arises no more nor the waters of Sligo, the murmuring of bees.
yet in the embattled consciousness remains
the ash stirred imprint of these.

mary angela douglas 20 july 2021; 8 october 2021