Can One Steal The Sun Or The Twelve Gates Of Heaven Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[to Jesus Christ, Now and Forever...]

can one steal the sun
the moon and the stars
the handiwork of God?

yet some have stolen the gold of them from our lives
the notion of life itself, the honeycombed flowering of it
the silver as well, pretending to be brave

and all things that gladden,
feigning kindliness.

how can I wish them well.
how can I bow down.
though I dwell in caves like David

though I eat grass, the wild grasses
while they feast on roasted apples
all manner of fine things;

counting my evictions
in the counting house of my everyday-
while they play.

though I risk the censure of kings
helping themselves to all the buffets,
did harm flow from my hands?

my God, they have buried the Cross
of Christ my Saviour,
wounding bright music.

can this be?

then may there be
in coming years no rain on their land,
their empty holdings.

and I will fight my fear
and try to understand these indignities
and speak what I see that

these are the psalms of centuries
they have put by.
and curled the lip and

made the widows cry and
orphaned the orphans further
so that they cannot stand.

where can mercy be found when
even the sun and the moon from our familiar skies
have bled have bled into their grasping hands

and I am left for dead
or feel that I am no longer-
an I at all.

or viable, in any sense of the word
until I turn to You alone.

oh God my only Home
in all the major and minor
of these interminable eclipses

guard my soul from the ravening wolves
and from the cowering Darkness
from the searing lambs that do their bidding

that the children no longer be captivated, captive ah,
in their own their very own native lands.

mary angela douglas 14 august 2015