You Give Short Shrift To The Swan Decked Page (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

goodbye to cynicism in the end; beauty and truth
will return to you again, oh darlings
but now:
you give short shrift to the swan decked page,
no quarter at all
to the glittering once upons
and sell your souls for political rage
turning Comfort that would comfort you, away;
I cannot love you postmodern age
yet can I weep because your sleep seems to me
all things considered so dreamless.
classical music bores you
that shook the stars
and if you plot out Space
you worship the trajectory
the machines that got you there
and not the God who placed in Space
the floating mysteries of so many torches
to light, tenderly, your oblivious way.
what have you got to say for yourselves
for decimating the majesty of poetry
and turning it into one long diatribe
or ceaseless praise of trivialities dully, duly noted
or insolence
when truly the glory of the earth is yours.
your teachers betrayed you
teaching you to look on the darker side.
moonlight seems wasted on you
birdsong at morning.
how much more could you disdain
the beaded curtains of the rain.
God save you from the paradise you'll make,
have made before
relegating beauty to a foreign post, and shoreless-
breaking the heart of the Holy Ghost, your own,
Shekinah! the glory of God.

mary angela douglas 15 december 2021; 29 january 2022; 28 march 2028