They Snatched Beauty Out Of The Air Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

they snatched beauty out of the air

and rose above the world despair

their own cinderella lives in tatters


no coach approaching on the jeweled road


I wonder how they dreamed

and made the dream enlarge beyond all

common, miserable matters


until it eclipsed almost completely


the penury they endured,

the utter obscurity

did God in a whispered word sustain them


and walking out of pocket on the avenues

did mysterious flower laden trees

fling down their blossoms continuously before them


that they should be the Kings of spring


so that they knew Someone knew

and told the angels what they were doing

at what cost


and led all the hidden graces

to their decrepit doorways

and made them believe


against the preponderance of evidence

their beleaguered lives accumulated


they were the chosen to endure, to claim even

one lost lovely word or image

true knights forever unheralded, if need be,



in search

of the beautiful, the unmitigated grail.


mary angela douglas 16 february 2018