THE BEAUTY OF WHAT IS DIFFICULT

the beauty of what is difficult
flows far beyond our hands
it bubbles in streams

where there are no fish

no container can contain it

you don't even wish for it
you wouldn't know what to call it
and wishes must have names
to be pinned like butterflies
in a landscape where even
the clouds can't move

oh but it's not on anyone's map

or payroll


but descends like some green dream

dead-center in midwinter
and you, you were so drear


or like snow when you

thought, "swelter"

swift and instantaneous
though you watched for it by
your sad windows long

centuries;

unbidden by even

the quickest, dearest knowledge

eluding the heart to the point of
despair
then doubling back the
difficulty of what is beautiful,
the poem, among other things,left unsaid.


cannot be tracked.

walking backwards into your new

life you thought with firestorming trepidation brighter
and better than before than


any precarious, quicksilver, late-lamented

but do not lament or brace
yourself for really bad news
it's too diamond-flecked it's marigold undimmed
this, ever after forever will be


spliced on a reel

that we're not turning


just this beautiful

just this difficult


my friend

mary angela douglas 24 july 2008;20 june 2022