Where I Was What I Saw Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

Dear Lord it does console

that you see beyond walls

in secret annexes and cells

little apartments

and behind the smiles

the requisite villains

hide so well

an enormity of suffering

about to uncoil

but how to explain

to people living in sunlight

how it feels to live in shade

to people on land, the colour of nearly drowning

to say to someone in a brightly lit office

I almost froze to death in this building

in the last four days of the holiday

and that person looks up with a smile and says

(profesionally speaking, or as at the close of the

working day)

as if she heard faint music with no eardrums at all

the trumpeting of the mute swan

oh Really

mary angela douglas 30 december 2022