Will They Tear You Out Of The Book Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[to the poet John Donne]

[to my Lord, Jesus Christ]

will they tear you out of the book
my Lord as though you were one page
not knowing you are the whole Library

and in their rage crumple and burn
so that we coming after may not learn
you woule have been our beauty and our truth

if we had known?

then all flowering, let it fade from the world
and the lindenwood grow pale.
for without you there is neither song nor

sod nor soul to rail.
let the ground not merely shift but disappear
and all the rose crowned years each time

we add their sum
resemble nought for
naught have we

who You forgot.

mary angela douglas 17 january 2016