LET POETRY BE CROWNED AGAIN WITH FLOWERS

[to the very green memory of Edmund Spencer, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.]

let Poetry be crowned again with flowers
with twining leaves
with irrepressible roses

let the antique page appear
with the afternoon mail
Maypole ribbons wrapped around it

with curious insignias with God's own
diamond sealing wax and the stamp of it
on your heart, unmistakable.

let violet curtains on a ghost-ridden stage
part on a scene of filmy wonder
revisited like Christmas.

let the Fairy Queen glide in impearled
and the sparkle in the air be newly minted.
and the angels hoisted on

unseen wires
sing Jubilate Deo
sing Jubilate everything!

mary angela douglas 21 december 2009