Washed Farther Downstream Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

"In my Father's house there are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you."
-Jesus

leaving your home on the twenty-second eviction
you turn again to the house within:
the one with too many windows

twice as many wreaths at Christmas time
with the bayberry sun aslant
the roof of winter and all the lights on.

God lives upstairs in the duplex
where it's always raining but He alone loves you
constantly.

there's no soap to wash your clothes
you mention shyly to the judge in
small claims courts all over the Land

when the creditors don't show up
to hear your story.
only the court appointed lawyer

who says in the end, I see no reason not to sue.
and the Judge says kindly you should go
back to school

and I say I'd like to learn Russian which
startles him, though I meant it
for Beauty.

and forms to fill out for food require
your answer twice a year
have you committed a felony?

do you know someone who has?
or do you eat alone.
(No. God lives here, too I write in pencil and then don't

mail it when I think how can they ask that.)

but you're the curator of stars
though no one says so
assuming you lack the expertise

and thank God that they still shine so in your dreams
as if it were sweet Bethel; it is certain
you know how to forbear: keeping the secret still

that you're the Princess in disguise though
like a sea-breathed myth you're lost on land
or seem to be

as in the Hallmark film of The Seventh Stream
you took home for free from the Library
through tears that no one saw

later on, for that last music box scene.
and then, it's a wild violet spring where you may
find any moment the path lit brightly by the stones

so milky in the gloaming, mysteriously glazed-
you piled up after school so long ago
with a small Queen's unaccountable forethought, prescient

in the berry-threaded woods beyond your years
for the Palace on green velvet moss you would
make here, after years,

washed farther - downstream….

mary angela douglas 13,8-9 september 2012