To The Bugler Falling To Earth Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

I dreamt I was warned in dreams

to depart another way

to stitch together the clouds

so that the sun could hide, repairing itself

out of the view of children who could cry

Look, Mama, the sun is bleeding gold

i dreamed in the violet twilights

music was no longer thwarted.

Lincoln on a ghost train

returned to fall again,

the copious weeping.

Whitman with lilac in his hands

and the lilac crumbling

oh shiloh shiloh

gettysburg again

the lilacs weeping.

the bugle falling to the ground

from the snow clad lips of the bugler

the nation not laid to rest

Lincoln returning on a ghost train

returning to fall again

the recurring nightmare...

song itself is wounded I cried

the staff of irretrievable music

the march of senseless pride

carries the day

far away from us all.

but God still hears the bugle call

falling to earth from snow clad lips

and sifts the voices.

and carries us through

when we can no longer stand.

mary angela douglas 25 june 2020