7.10.2006

On we go. This is the ornamental midpoint of current "chapter". (Companion to #10 of previous chapter - posted over at Alephoebooks.)

10


What sort of voice is this, then (in blue light
of cave-mouth) whose semaphoric gravity
slowly seines the iron? A river-ditty
cups an osier (Joseph's willow-basket) -


its homely suavity retrieves the gardener
from grave retreat, its pulse a counterweight
to fictive terror in the tales. Reciprocate
harbinger of recognition, angelic warden


of the vengeant arm, sergeant of Abraham;
answerer, twin-sister, echo, dove.
Gold-withy florin, painstaking... Love's
grandmotherly and oaken logogram.


Concentric rings compile a universe
of anniversaries (reflective palimpsest
and testament) for Providence. A nest-
collegium (eccentric, implicate, obverse).


Your king (yourself) conveyed upon a sled
into the boneyard of the replicas
has answered back (a fecund Amazon,
familiar Magdalen, resurgent riverhead


of recognitions). The gardener's ground zero
of transgressions is transposed to chords
of a resplendent bower-bird's word-
hoard - both gambrelled listener and hero,


your still-tendrilled mirror of reunions.
Tentative, antiphonal, the whispers
built a stony circle of fifths - spires
above Nevaland, refulgent onion-


*


domes; it was a floating coronation,
water-lily incarnation, signal-design -
echo of the heart's unearthly pine
(sustent beyond the garland of the nine).


Time uncoils unseasonal suspense
across the quarrels of the tribes. A stone
hand hovers over the edge of the canoe
at Prospect Park. What tender balance


swings that audible city of audacity
toward pity?
Listen, listen - O Eternity,
he cried - weaving a crib, his muttering
reality
- O concave octave framing unity.


Then springs of praise - pervasive tree -
scribbled from every margin to the sea;
transpolar (equable, inviolate) civil society
espoused the conscientious refugee
.


And what of the map? The map's a rude
and woody crossword (love's ninefold ormolu
of equatorial and jungled parallels).
Equations of experience; the blooded


pattern of rust in green extravagance.
Earth drones in the labyrinthine furnace;
the stirring of her mettled source
reverberates through every elegance,


silvers the ploughshare, stills the swing.
And then a suspended seventh sounds again.
It is an amnesty for labored denizen,
the planetary pinion (Saturn's wing).

No comments: