The Secret Land Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

underneath our lives that seem so often
choked with tears, with joys thwarted
and the ice closing in on our fears

there runs a golden stream
much further underground
where we are healed and whole

and laughing in a multi flowered breeze that only cools
and will never destroy us;
no longer the toy of the fates

or the furies or the unbounded contempt
of those who would rule over us,
it's there we live, beyond all condemnation

in eternal spring. it's there that we grow wings
and there we dream unceasing
through the days

so that even under torture or its lesser,
its everyday disguises
we may smile,

knowing a secret Land.

mary angela douglas 11 june 2016