Song For The Last Interview Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

'it will flame out like shining from shook foil'
-Gerard Manley Hopkins

for Dr. Robert Joseph Connelly, San Antonio, in memorium


this is for the Word born whole
for the poetry-riven sky
for the strength to recognize a lie

for the breakable language
unbroken still
by the bent word

built for profit,
not for truth.

this is my sigh in the glass blown
air for the glass blown disappearing act of
stars in the glasslike night

appearing,
disarming, chiming in the wind
that only angels bring

the pause (finally in excoriating speech
-your very own-)
where you collect yourself
if not your things

from one last day at work
or home
picking your report card up

in June from the ghost school
from the ghosts.

this is for cornbread heirlooms,
for afternoons of strawberries
and cream -

for the Holy Ghost dressed in pale green
for the whole world seen
through stereoscopic Disney,

Christmas stenciled windows;
the last view of small
pink flowers bordering the front

sidewalk, goodbye...

this is for God
who hears and sees the
honey tinged questions'

finding fault
so that permanent records
continue to reflect
your waywardness in
never having the exact

amount of change
this is for the second you know

you have to leave
the home you love
so much earlier than you planned
with only three dresses packed
in a

walnut, and the Lord's prayer on a dime:
fixing the hall clock in your memory
the jelly glasses
and the willow-ware, the brightness of pennies

over other denominations...

repairing your chiffon shadow
on the way with your personal sewing kit
to honor those who raised you
and read you fairytales

as though from great distances.

this is for
no safe-houses on the horizon
least of all the yellow brick one
across the street

where children climb trees
and eat the whole summer
an entire orchard of homeade

peach ice cream...

this is for the deep-starred journey
undertaken
for the fools errands
for the straw that will never never

ever turn into gold
no matter how the Rumplestiltskins scream.
listen to me:

questionable friends
make the journey a million times
harder and give you the wrong
directions to the castle so
that you never find
the singing bird.
this is for trudging on alone

for crossing the border and
not looking back even when
the person coming with you
changes their mind at sunrise
and runs to tell on you.

this is for living
like the silence of the moon
and soon and soon

you will withdraw from a tiny shell
at the exact right moment in the interview, a
shining like shook foil shaken-
three dresses of compressed splendor
kept against the rain and
wrapped in violet tissue:

the one of vivid stars
the one of ornate flame
the one of cloudless cloudless blue

and, as if on cue, the opal angels move-
scattering the inquisitors;
settling old accounts
in scripts of gold

with not one scintilla of
asking anyone for permission.
for you were watched over
even while crocodiles wept
my child my child at
every nightmare's exit

by the Word unbroken:
by music heard in the wake of angels,
by undetainable Light...

mary angela douglas 30 june 2009 rev.7 december 2016