To Jean Redpath (Reposted And Revised) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

Singer of Scottish ballads par excellence.

[and to my mother, Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas]
'Fled is that music-: Do I wake or sleep? '
John Keats, Ode To A Nightingale]

fled is the dream past dream on the clock of waking;
tulip-cupped the moon where the starry snows are flaking.
when will I awake in the rooms of before, not after?
silver, laughed the trees but they are gone
where the sun creaks like old swings on the playgrounds.

after song is evensong, afterthought is all,
in pearl bright slippers.
and the sunsets crowd: mere thread
through the needle of the last hour
shadowing the pear trees in the fairy story

count, king by king and it's away
sigh the milk bright; wept the sailors
lost to executions now; the end of May
unread, wrote the poets in the frost of
windowpanes...the music drifts.

I'm going door to door selling all the flowers
out of my mind and orphaned from the business world

and late for lunches wrapped in wax paper;
the jam smudged bread.
these songs in my head oh


nebulae, almost cried the child in the crib
with the orange coverlet;
dream, sighed the clouds and took her home;


is it too late for conversations?
that have scattered the cranberry hills,
my heart- where it's all flood tide for the


brides with lilies in their hands: all for Art


the songs at her command
on the cusp of lavender and in the purpling dark
she used to know.


and here they leave you (all your songs)

and you don't know why yet
where the gold and the silver leaves
have fluttered fluttered down
unclasping the fairytale branches


that scar these skies...


skirling, the wanderer wandered
and far from the rose red lanes.
the voice of mists may falter:


the Song, remains-
mary angela douglas 1 september 2014;


[last four lines in italics added september 2,2014;
rev.9 october 2014]; 25 august 2022