Letter To My Former College; Revised Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

now when I write you

you answer in templates; that place I felt was full of saints

if you answer at all on your facebook wall

is it because I am no longer a prospective student

seeking a catalogue to catalogue all the reasons why

I should be in love with your granite architecture forever

the way the little tulip tree blossoms near the mezzanine

where I looked out as it was

covered with sudden snow a stinging glow on my face

because my window is raised

and that was Spring; the Spring when I learned everything

when every blossom fall was fragrant with the whole acute

universe

and I wrote green verse in green ink

or in the winter halls I cherished

the way snows sweep past the lamplight in early December

seen from a dorm window at night and lit up as with angels.

those things make me weep when I recall them

or how I listened tenderly to Mendelssohn's violin concerto

as performed by a friend so that everything around me

suddenly rose up in a pale green and fervent whispering

or read Rilke till dawn in the translations of M. Herter Norton.

I lived there then. and every inch of ground and space

was blossoming with the possibilities of learning something

revitalized as if from a Golden Age

something rarified even holy; understood, imprint in amber

filtering Dante's several suns or

at any moment, coming around the corner to see

Quixote in genteel poverty or Picasso's poster on a wall

beside a professor's office posted with his hours;

me in my dress of flowers contemplating

Dulcinea near the tower bell.

and all the Remembrances Of Things Past

there remain to tell but to whom.

What hell is this that now when I speak

or whatever I ask

there is no one who remembers me who has empathy

for the past that was my Present then

or the poem about the falconer in mind.

as they are caught up in the sweep of sweeping Time:

the Image, Brand up off the floor

where freaks like me have perhaps littered it

with overemotional reminiscence St. Louis at my crossroads:

that Silver Arch through which I had come thinking of

Tennyson's Ulysses, Memoriam before I had begun just as

Tennyson did

what does it matter to you now, sorting through forms

you think of me as a ghost if you think at all

someone to be sorted as the English say

so you can get on with your administrative day.

who are you; were you once an invading army

buildings are not enough to preserve what there was then

a something intangible sparkling in the air

an irrefutable threshold lustre of bronze bright autumn

anywhere

the curious turning of an intricate mind twining

the myriad thread through the labyrinth

Everybody Is A Star on the jukebox

Cherry Danish from the machine

on Saturdays...

you with your new crops now.

your technological know how

your alumni dollars. anyhow

crop this from the picture if you can.

in april or may remembering a poem I wrote one day

under a tree of great and white azalea brightening

my ghost will come to stay resolved in her ancient quest

fluttering the pages of all the books in the library.

and by infinite starlight. blessed.

mary angela douglas 4 may 2020; rev.6 june 2020