To God My Father From A Dubious Kingdom Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

To God My Father From A Dubious Kingdom
[...the One has far to go
Past the mirages and the murdering snow.

Edwin Muir, The Incarnate One]
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I carried Your universe in my mind

through long years'
walking in winter's shade.

the winter sun shone
like icon gold whenever the cadence
of icicled stars so brightly sounded.

but veneration slept
and could not be wakened.
I saw the tears of angels freeze,

their stunning incapacity-
and seraphs of every nation
leave the room, too brokenhearted

when the chrism of sheer poetry
was voted down by those
who should have known better.

I saw the altar of numbers
and how nothing was
accounted for there

and scant children crying
for a loveliness departing,
kissing their outstretched

hands as though for the last time:
'come back...', mourning.

there were warriors
who fought from a cold and
impeccable emptiness
and could not win.

now ice has settled
over all of them
as in the Snow Queen's parlour

and we are wasted, waiting there
for one more performance review.
counting on You, just you to know:

the fugitive heart still scanning
after all this snow.

mary angela douglas 4 january 2009; rev.5 september 2014