To Forge A New Solitude (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

maybe it is necessary to forge a new solitude
to stop imbibing bad news and then when you shut it off
to stop being its serf, to then slump like a ragdoll
or be renewed like a wind up toy as though you had
no footfall on earth.
maybe we need to just go back before
there was any news at all
not to be in perpetual motion, not to keep
putting the towers back in the skies
not to keep up with world wide gossip
sometimes only to rest and abide.
not to keep testing yourself for the Plague,
twenty four, twenty four hours a day
to go home. as far as you can make it
and on foot.to live by softened lamplight
for a long time, or watching the leaves turn gold in the wind
the gathering of blue rain in small pools
the runoff of streams; to eat your breakfast quietly
with rosily ripened strawberries and ecru cream
to breathe in the stars and apple trees.
to pray to God on living sod.
not to be weighted with what is expected of you
from social experiments and censuses, contraptions...
gathering all statistics near
as though they were your children.
the heart is not a commodity;
we are not weather vanes subservient to the wind
we are not meant to give in to all this
so that the soul sobs like a small child
who has lost her way and cannot be comforted
by the seashell pearl emptiness of Time

mary angela douglas 7 january 2022; 24 march 2023