CAN A WORD BE MAPPED

 

testing the acoustics in my last cathedral

I folded up the petal of a song

into my best pocket

 

like a map only clouds configure

not to scale

I wonder and

 

I wonder why

the sun is leaking light and

I'm afraid

 

already the wounded images are in hiding

and “nowhere” is written

large across the sky

 

though not inscriptive gold.

 

can a word be mapped

or will it fly like a color wheel

falling off a sunset sky

 

or like a ghost ship sailing on no water

 

it's the marbled music I

can't find anymore

no matter how I try

since moving from an old neighborhood

though I

Cast my Mercator net

 

so wide so wide

from the mark that distance cannot measure.

can a word be mapped

or must we live

 

blind and deaf to music in the end

wondering where the poets went-

ceding their diamond letters,

one by one

mary angela douglas 29 july 2010

I SAW THE GHOST OF WALTER DE LA MARE

 

I saw the ghost of Walter de la mare

leaning, on an April curve of music,

unaware

I saw his hands of tender glass

and the thin china he was drinking from,

reflective, the dark raspberry still waters

of beauty he drew up in pailfuls-

the silver pooling stars

at his beck and call-

the curio cabinets bedizened,

strongholds of childhood jams

and the apricot laughter of the cherubim,

by his side.

 

now acorn cups half brim from twilight rain

the fairy feast’s abandoned, he complained

“Is there anybody there”?

he said, answering his own soul alone

“the whispering trees of Eden”,

he wept.

 

they pour the ocean into a thimble

our golden ships may founder in the Moss,

there are other losses,

song is made desolate, Walter de la mare

long years since your flag was

lowered to the ground,

marring with pearl

the semblances of Music

everafter.

 

rust from the muted region’s flaking.

your antique tears I brushed away,

no one’s watercolor, for so long.

mary angela douglas 20-21 december 2009