AMERICAN CLEARING

(for Harold Bloom)

I see the poets writing their last songs
and the trains up ahead in an American clearing
and the cottonwoods murmur the poplars planted

long ago, how, how long till they depart
who wrote the wounding of the hearts and the balms too.
feverish in their dreams now and the last winter set

not much time for their regret except
when will the listening world awake
I hear them ask for mercy's sake

you weren't born anyway for commerce.
commence again the latticed page
latticed with remaining light though

the golden age is out of sight
coming or going in the nights
that others knew, before you.

oh watchmen on the fiery towers
pitched long past grief's relentless hours
whisper a word or two for us

who follow you as it's said, to dust,
though not our souls
into the country none on earth has seen.

that we may bloom on other shores
remade in the green of our befores

and take up singing evermore
and learn what all of this was for,
the music and the chiding.

mary angela douglas 15 july 2018