There Is No Wilderness Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

there is no wilderness

in which he will not write

of running streams

or label the stars in jars

and set them on shelves

for future, for tender, reference

counting the opaline his;

every instant, an amethyst.

you will say, perhaps,

why must he sieve the snows;

does he really need that many starfish?

or to carry the roses from Here to There

in a rundown workshop

all chimney smoke

and no wood...

to an infinite garden?

if he only could.

beware of him the mothers cry

clutching their infants close.

he comes from the tribe of wishes

shining into no mirror at all

and crystal pendants

on foreign chandeliers;

year on year,

gathering prisms like moss;

and into the great concertos

that have not yet arrived

he will dodge as into thickets.

why is he alive

at such a cost, contradiction

of being lost and labyrinthine too

pressing the words down carefully

into the Spring mud

as if they would fly away:

the scudding clouds.

and growing stranger day by day

radiant and painting the sun

in an unequal contest;

developing the film all night

ah he is armor bright,

inured to all affliction

so that tomorrow,

the contract with dawn

may be renewed.

mary angela douglas 26 may 2019