21
I’ve lived for some years now along Abba River
in Q’ville a stream wide, deep, invisible to which
Ocean is tributary & stars are lights each
in a niche of a bend along its banks a quiver-
full are clustered at the center of the earth
matrix of bends & origami folds a silvery thread
knotted tight & gleaming there the stream’s head
source & watershed (east west north south)
This river’s where inside turns out & myrrh
turns mirror (by St. Louie MO) where wanderer
goes OM at last prodigal Absalom to his poor
long-forsaken Solomon (Abba Pop Dad Father)
& the tripod of their lost, lasting embrace is
bond of universal steel (titanium-lanthanum-
oxide alloy) which is most tautwound anthem-
flower in the planetary plot grave Providence
of all things in those arms their hands
united fingers interwoven & unbreakable
palm-vault beyond every Olympic pinnacle of
bronze or gold & racing now (triple-handstands)
toward that Finnish line in summertime halcyon
days up north (is it Karelia? Sibelius swam-
pineland?) where a vain little man in his own
birch canoe (Longfellow? Hiawatha?) glides down
Minnehaha Creek his boat festooned with 7 flags
of 50 stars (red, blue, purple) a paper hat (or
tiny boat) crowning his brow crowing Excelsior!
paddling home (homesick Frank in his glad rags)
7.1.12
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