The Dream Of The Apples She Will Not Forsake Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

for Marie Foster Douglas Smith

I have seen clouded apple trees in dreams

in idealized paintings pale under moonlight


scene by scene

pink in the flush of the milk skeined skies


not wanting to depart.

my heart my heart its madrigal

of staying weeps and clings to the branches


as if I were those native birds


because I know I am bourne up by those mists

that cloudiness in the marble that is pure azure.

what good can you do to tell me in so many words


I am making this up when I sense they are

beckoning me in orchards of the Unseen

I am meant to pluck, by and by such largesse


you say I waste time dreaming, I should confess

my waywardness

but you lie.


everything is there on the underside of the leaves

and their breathing and all that green

blossoming into white, or cast into a pink shade


is Heaven to me

and whether I sleep or wake

you cannot take it from me.



mary angela dougla 27 july 2019