Already The Snow Lights Have Gathered In The Skies (Final Version,2) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

'iniquitous courts have banished the moonlight'

-Natalia Gorbanevskaya

(to Robert Louis Stevenson)

already the snow lights have gathered in the skies
opalescent shine the clouds from every side and corner
of the map of our antiquities.
I dream of that, that the angels of the four corners blow
to tip my dreamship far over the tangerine horizon
and the dream artist's canvas drips
with all the water's colours in full regalia so that
it is tyger bright winter by the time I cry:
depart from me, iniquitous courts
and I commence floating
to the place I don't know
that isn't on any map revealed by snow.
oh mapless soul, my swan,
whither will you wander now
I ask these dream shadows.
but they, like any candle going out
can only sing.

mary angela douglas 21 january 2022; 9 march 2023