The Beauty Of What Is Difficult Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

for Tony Dagnall

the beauty of what is difficult
flows far beynd our hands

it bubbles in streams
where there are no fish

no container can contain it
you don't even wish for it
you wouldn't know what to call it
and wishes must have names
to be pinned like butterflies
in a landscape where even
the clouds can't move

oh but it's not on anyone's map
or payroll

but descends like some green dream
dead-center in midwinter
and you, you were so drear

or like snow when you

thought, 'swelter'
swift and instantaneous
though you watched for it by
your sad windows long

centuries
unbidden by even

the quickest, dearest knowledge
eluding the heart to the point of
despair
then doubling back the
difficulty of what is beautiful,
the poem, among other things, unsaid.

walking backwards into your new
life you thought with trepidation brighter
and better than before than

any precarious, quicksilver, late-lamented
but do not lament or brace
yourself for really bad news
it's too diamond-flecked it's marigold undimmed
this, ever after forever will be

spliced on a reel
that we're not turning

just this beautiful
just this difficult

my friend

mary angela douglas 24 july 2008