We Should Be Booking Passage On The Good Night Ship Again Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

we should be booking passage on the good night ship again

all sails billowing in an opalescent wind

the moon winks gold the stars show jubilee

snow drifts like petals upon an emerald sea

softly, softly the night bird sings

shall you remember me

who knows but that the last lullaby may shadow the first

except we won't be rowing back to earth

by sunrise, sunrise rhe sleep still in our eyes

we could do worse than imagine it so

that the last sleep is a flower sleep

in errant lovely april hushed

and the heart is brimming

with the late snows, the late snows

that we will miss so much

then we will Christmas croon Jesu, it's you we adore

and hear our mamas calling us

to moire to pearl bright shores.

mary angela douglas 18 august 2022; 1 march 2023