The Angel To Shostakovich In A Dream (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

the angel of music
warned in a dream: - to you,
half lucid in the light that's left:
you live in a snarling era
be careful
let the notes fly higher
above the wolfish days
that beautiful music, that willow bent down to the ground
encoded with sorrow... be not eaten alive
it is the dissonance in God well played, composed
stretched to the breaking point of so many violins
from the nights of His weeping transposed
Transfigured,
sounding the cello's depths, as if it were a Soul
a friend, facing Judgement;
the glass like piano, the treble sheared off;
the glockenspiel bells, oh three lilies
proffered over the abyss, almost shattering;
over the tattered, the reckless earth
the lone aria, broken at the stem;
the part of the map worn through
with grieving.

mary angela douglas 6 january 2022; 24 march 2023