The Mystic Worker On The Job Inadvertently Stealing Time Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

sometimes within us, an interstellar light

floods the flood plains of our inner sight

right in the factories of the middle of the day

keep your head down lest someone see and discern

from middle management

of the royal rubber stamping

of the grim Grimm working day

your head is full of visions scraps of fairytales

you cannot banish away despite company policy

not only, how may I help you today

interplanetary worm holes

secret cherishing forays

into the beautiful.

check on the next customer in your drab uniform

with your eyes a little downcast at the register

registering the light years travel of the waves

under the piped in music that makes people buy MORE

the irrepressible sonics of saints and angels o strive

not to show you have been up all night and that

you are still alive

like Pascal, awash in stellar snows

or Dante in the breakout dazzling of the intemperate

presence of God concocting the Rose

leaving peculiar glitter on the lawns

and where you walk, taking inventory now

trying not to get caught

for stealing time as they call it in HR just in your mind

remembering what you saw

in the panoramic midnight before the bus fumed dawn.

mary angela douglas 22 june 2023