Some Days I Just Want This Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

some days I just want to look at the land
at the bands of rain sweeping over it
in crystalline beading

at the green haze of trees sponged in
as if in some middle distance painted
by an unknown painter, not me,

who can only gaze and gaze
into the violet blue of skies
above thunderheads

the cream of what's left of the day
brimming, the birds skimming
thin gold off the horizon

the lemon moon made new.

those days I cannot speak at all
or be spoken of
be spoken to.

what language is greater than this
to see no matter how briefly
to feel

the scope of it all.
to be caught in the rains in this way

may be sheer Heaven in the end
to feel as Whitman did
the sacredness of grass, blade by miraculous blade

the petal of shade falling over it now
near nightfall
the rich eventide, hushed etude of the soul

even with its scarcity, cloud covered,
of stars.

mary angela douglas 13 september 2018