Reading Wallace Stevens Under The Flowering Trees,1970 Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

the assurance of flamingo sugar pink
against the near jade waters...
I think of angels, the aprils that they wear and

carols in the carolinas
and the abstract wren chosen
over the pearl edged dove, spiraling,

and wallace stevens at home,
never at home, anywhere
or why is he never

answering the door
forever the connoisseur
the Beats cannot endure of

the impractical, the expensive
work of art the extravagant non-protest
the high toned avering crystal surreal

of the evening angels whirring
and the polonaise malaise,
the palmettos you know you cannot afford

on your salary
the rare oranges
for the sunday brunch...

but it's what you feel the most
the attention to beauty
amber honey on the toast

even at the edge of doom
bearing it out
and you've missed lunch

in the cafeteria now
because you couldn't
admire enough the outre

oranges
you'll never munch
haha, can you even imagine

him saying, oh please have one
yummy as tropical suns
while you await

the bridal apple tree's
blooming over the fence of Eden
to release anointing petals never-ending

the angels with their swords notwithstanding...
you cannot hear a word I'm saying
who wonder if it is too late

in the tropical green of the sward
in the painting
for me to lift the latch on the gate for the

falling words failling through a
jeweled space to ever be meant
for the human race

for this is a dream not well disguised
the crayons of children
not good at growing up

who will not sup the usual fare
while they are dying
for the fairy tale pear on the Sevigne plate

or who,
casually pluck the Firebird feathers
to look as though

you hadn't been crying
to be near the revelatory throne
in your abstract years now that

they are mounting up, strange birds
flapping in the offing
where the emerald rainbow shone

nearer to St. John than to the business phone
in Hartford, Hartford bring me the file
with the rose birds set against

the mere and blue green skies
all those pretty lies they once called poetry
before they all wised up..

I cannot forget I am
reading under the shade trees
at the college I don't care if I get wet

I'm in the peach shadows
and I know it
of the moratoriums

and turn the page
as it introduces thunder
over the roses in the Carolinas

but briefly
o that you are never sure, never assured
in the galleries is it out of reach

the rich intaglios, the peach
if you saw, if you heard
in a waning, warring world the

extravagant exits painted
like a door
you could almost go through

not being really a political you
you try so hard to comprehend
what it was that you adored back then

so far away-o that you're defending now
from the relevant, the relevant:
the visuals and the parrot seeming

the poet assuming another pose
in the steady rain pouring in the roses
angels everywhere now and slippery

because he cannot stop needing them
to cover up the tracks of God
in the elaborate mud

and near the doorbell now of Zion
raising an emerald finger, the Deity
before the floods

because you know I know
He loves, He loved
the poet in his Ethan Allen chair

(you guess, you've never been there)
impassive near the magazines
and in nectarine lamplight

the expensive prayer in disguise and it's
dreaming and dreaming...weeping as the pearl edged Dove
was murmuring into a petaled shell

Arise! and come

mary angela douglas 9 march 2018