On The Ballads Of Joan Baez Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

her voice at its summit
was pure miracle
leaving notes to shimmer in the air
transfiguring
time, art, eternity
how sad I was
o qué tristeza

when this became complicit
with megaphones with battering rams
of even sheer idealism for perhaps the better causes
what use for nightingales is this I reminisced
back then I was less forgiving
teardrops on a nosegay at the catastrophic
ersatz wedding of
such delicate music
with a frog prince
pure violin strings her voice broke
for me there was only Baez the voice like a chimera
Into such glory had flown
all the lilied maids
the fairytale incognito forever
the sweethearts at sea away
the lyric voice at exquisite pitch breaking the heart
or holding sway
alive o the myrtle and roses
the elegiac
spanish and celtic and beyond renumeration
melancholia transmuted that way
making the case for Beauty almost alone
beyond the politics of nations, home
on this earth rebirthed in the hollows the refuge
of the Song illuminated
the silver of the soul revealed
without money and without price
the gipsy bangles of infinity
the turquoise of the night.
the flight of swans
accountng
of the blessed once upons.
mary angela douglas 29 september 2023