Russian Folklore At A Glance Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

the year of our enchantment in the provinces...
this is a folk tale you may recognize on
lacquerware or stenciled on trays

with which you come away through customs
having been served tea with raspberry jam
from an ancient samovar

and everything's clover, so they say
in the mystical guidebooks published in the U.S.A.
as I am snow blinded May to May

in a blizzard of flower petaling trees
by monastery domes;
all the blue and gold or silver unalloyed

of a waning, wedding day
I imagine for a country I'm not from;
but, anyway,

I hear the choirs at sunset hum
in the square; it's a Malevich Square
so White Night white on white

where they sing, I sing,
come away, imagining I am a bird
the most folkloric

you ever heard
capable of the finest translations
of the martyrologies

wrapped in a pale blue shawl of a sky
and dying for them all.


mary angela douglas 9 december 2018; rev. january 19 2019