8.22.2016

antipodean parks


SILVER CHEST

Uncle George the plowman zigzags calmly
weaving his furrows back 
& forth (west of Fond du Lac).
Laboring almost at rest, along his way.

The black soil teems with memories.
Childhood in Mendelssohn,
a helium balloon –
only now the fatal pine shades Miriam’s

plein air Jubilee (specific gravity
of coffin-keel).  Time,
History here touch the rim
of a labyrinth (Fro-Back, so corny)

whose perimeter outlines her face –
smiling, dreaming, lost
in the supple meadow-grass
of Eros flowering to Agape (O Grace).

Spruce Mountain rises straight ahead,
pilgrim – just south of Bonnie
Craigielee.  Matilda will be
waltzing there, in a tamarack shade

not far from the sea; she will take your hand
where kids’ bird-voices
boomerang – where earth rejoices
in equilibrium, & equity.  One command

radiates Franciscan swag of turtledove;
one cloud sheds orange arcs
over antipodean parks
of aboriginal penitence (blue Jonah-love).

8.22.16

painting by Phoebe Gould (about age 10)

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