SHONE

we are leaving behind
books that are unwritten
children who won't be born.

we are leaving

the unweeded gardens the
high pavillions of
peerless starlight

and much that is unleavened.

you may be asked in Heaven
why you abandoned in

bright midsummer the

cream colored cottage and the
strawberry vine

leaving the teacups

scattered,
taking
not even your books that opened at
the same page always

when the dormer winds blew...

was it war or famine

or the curdling moon
was it the witch with
the poisoned apple with her combs
of pale green diamonds like no other April...

my unregarded words?

or were you just filling time
with music only angels heard,

the singing bone-

when the sad, unaccountable distance-

shone?

mary angela douglas 29 August 2011/1 may 2009