Brightness Is Brighter Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

to e.e. cummings

brightness is brighter
gold on gold ever gathered
falling out of creases in the clouds
beckoning from the quartz glints
unexpected, on crummy sidewalks

flung flower filled through twilight skies,
not penny-pinched, the seldom truly glimpsed,
wildflowered out the windows of the proud
and drawing room banned; of little note

between raindrop and raindrop
pierrots weeping into the sequined suns
whenever sommersaulted nothing's won-
still, musical without the audition-

muddled, opal-puddled
it goes on gardenia-gleaming
in a basement atelier

sweet columbine spinning tulle graced
into God's best guessing games
there is light there is light
sang the child in early spring's
white violet arias
forgetting the scales oh not the halos,

brightness is lighter than all aureoles,
orioles in the auroras
tangerine sectioned out of sight

you can carry it in the corner of
your eyes, in any disguise
cloud shaped piano
drifting, dreaming through the droning:
multicoloured, even after Christmas
goes away and I have loved Your
multifoiled winds their infinite snowing

invisibly valentined reprieves
of the non-descript days
crowned queen of the
maybe something lavish will happen...
who can say,
rose-trellising the drizzle.

you can ferry it no matter who
they think you are in the day-to-day,
clandestine, marveling in the thought of it;
cramped in dim corners but otherwise,
cherishing the faintest ray

you're that regally ragtag
though they shove you
out of their way.

whatever else you're lacking
even with no packing on each
dress white eviction day-
pearl punctuated, bride ghosted
brightness goes with you
mere dragons dare not slay

mary angela douglas 26 march 2014

Note on Poem: cloud shaped piano - this is the second time I found a way to allude to that wonderful image in Chekov's The Seagull referencing the writer writing down each
thing he sees without respite including a cloud shaped like a piano...