ON THE OCTAVE


 
 
This limpid morning belongs to the flowering dogwood
drifting white petals stained with a gash of purple
to the center of the sleepy backyard garden.
Hidden somewhere beyond chattering sparrows and
yodeling robins, a solitary mourning dove fingers
an ocarina, like a version (in minor key) of the Angel
with Flaming Sword, at the Garden gate.
                 So Mendelssohn
would become his composition:  a furtive green island
seen as light through water, as fingers extend
to the muted bell-tone
of a final octave.
    So I would travel back
aboard the swift smooth chariot of a single note
to where the ghost of a charitable father turns
to the image of a faithful son, in pure
attunement:
     by deep foundations of the sea
lifted from the grave, as was decreed
before the waters were divided from themselves:
when the soul of every man (Mary, Eurydice,
Persephone...) emerges from the sepulchre to meet
the gardener again.  And now a heavy lilac scents
the air, like limpid light through water; as if
to say
 you must translate and be translated,
the pillar of smoke and the pillar of flame
become your own:  for the only sign
is the sign of a mourning dove
at the edge of the garden.