The Ghosts Of My Gestures Fade Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

THE GHOSTS OF MY GESTURES FADE
Sometimes I feel I am peering through a one way mirror
into the faces that I see into certain gestures into time that falls
away as petals from the flower of them as shafts of sunlight from the darkening trees
I can see all these I can feel in each detail the scent of snow or sudden hail
and yet
there is no echo back not even a tapping on the glass.
only the sense that I am acknowledged long enough for my answers to be copied onto someone else's paper'
it baffles me. Looking out even within I think is my planet shrinking
my orbit negligible
or do my footprints disappear in the vast snows in advance
of their accumulation forgoing all that
and are my words tunneled through
straightening their errant crowns
heralded on another shore;
bypassing this dimension entirely

mary angela douglas 8 october 2020