The 3-yrs-or-so process of writing Forth of July was preceded by a couple decades of thought & experimentation with long poems & the influence of Crane, Olson, Williams, Pound, primarily. I was always stimulated by local history & landscape, so that Stubborn Grew is in part a local history poem, and some of the symbolic figures of Forth of July emerge from that background.

William Blackstone, the Anglican hermit-minister, scholar, farmer, & early RI settler, is one of those figures. While "Bluejay" emerges as a Hermes-shaman-Holy Ghost instigator-of-adventures, Blackstone represents the search for knowledge, understanding, vision - a kind of reclusive solitary quest for the central meanings of human reality - acting out the scriptural precept, "Make your eye single, and your whole body will be full of light." In Stubborn he stands in the shadows of "Henry's" confessional Lenten shriving. Here's a salient Blackstone section from early in Stubborn:

Rain and wind, wind and the rain. Lent.
Drifting for days, cloudy, over New England.
El Nino.  In my beginning is my end.
And Blackstone rode into exile without incident

 
out of Boston, into Rhode Island, astride a white bull.
Anglican recluse.  Study Hill, in Cumberland.
His Study Hall was Alexandrian -
a nest of books; his morning orchard full

 
of Yellow Sweetings.  It was Eden before Eden,
Ithaca before the Greek was translated, hidden Rome
at the end of roaming, Ethiopian Negus kingdom
nestled high beyond flood-tide... heaven

 
for meditation.  3 Bibles, 10s; 6 English books
in folios, L2.  3 Latin books, in folio, 15s;
3 do. large quarto, L2; 15 small quarto, L1 17s
16d; 14 small do., 14s.; 30 large octavo...L4....5s...

 
Inventory, May 28th (day of his burial).  Body
was hardly cold in the ground.  Band of King Philip's.
Burned Study Hall and all its books.  The earth itself
was all that remained.  A few smoldering ashes... two

 
rough quartz grave markers.  Painfully regret the
destruction... those "paper books".  (Probably ms.)
Left England to get out from under the power of lord bishops,
but in America I am fallen under lord brethren.

 
I looked to have dwelt with my orchards and my books,
my young fawn and bull, in undisturbed solitude.
Was there not room enough for all of ye?
Could ye not leave the hermit in his corner?

 
Study Hill became Ann & Hope (first American
shopping center).  Blackstone went missing - bones
in a wooden box sealed in lead... heavy lead foil.
Its corners were soldered... 12x12x6 inches in

 
size.  Ashes, bones, clay - time past perhaps good compost.