On The Mirrors Of Arvo Part And His Departures (Second Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

(on the music of Arvo Part)


yesterday you wrote

inscribed and ever inscribing

in the pooling of mirrors



crushing the kaleidoscopic colours

of feelings past music into an undiscovered realm

or as if angelic beings held enormous



mirrors reflecting music back

from its beginning in a universe

we could not know or forgot that we knew


or were we driven in fear from the yard of gold

by the dogs with eyes as enormous as teacups, windmills

in a neighborhood of sounds distressed

compressed our hearts, boiling with the lids on tight



so that you alone guessed and then took note

in notes as rare as certain birdsong at night

did you wake to hear? sheer



refractions of the rose, the violet, the forest shards

ah children turn again, you whispered, Christmas uncle

that you are


and then it works


the battered toy, the hidden borealis, star

no longer receding



and in your midnight watches so composed

beyond the guarded borders of our sighs

of the whirling angels, list! that we all stood still


a kind of requiem in ourselves and then, the glorias

weeping that this music filled

an ache in the soul

never before comprehended



mary angela douglas 2 october 2016; rev.23 january 2018; 28 june 2019