So begins a new turn for the old worm...

AUTUMN DOOR



 
 
1

 
This November day, saturated with rain and twilight.
In the backyard, a cardinal, almost camouflaged
by moldering leaves.  A little breeze emerges
from the other side of thought.
                                          
                                            11.16.06


 
 
2

 
In Nicholas of Cusa's Game of Spheres
each toss of the ball might bring you closer to the center
of the nine... but maybe not.  Enter
the game.  See how your cautious throw veers

 
(slightly askew) in the plotted direction...
Its track traces the outline of a satellite's
ellipse – like Kepler's polygon (not quite
your omnipresent sphere without circumference –
                                         but near).


 
 
3

 
I know you're able to read me like a book.
Enlighten me, then, with those almond eyes.
My abject secret, everywhere despised,
you decipher with a single glance – look,

 
there's nowhere I can hide.  My riddle game
a round dance from Siena (oblong and
infinitely long) – and when you recognize
its cryptic meaning, you'll translate my shame.

 
So this ovoid sphere (shaped like a pear
almost drawn out of shape) in its unending round
begins to resemble those autumnal browns
glinting with green highlights... (please don't stare).



 
 
4

 
A worm inches toward hibernation-life.
A worm in the cold womb, Lazarus
of compost.  And womb and worm coalesce
in an almond shape – bent spiral, winter glyph.

 
When the two make one, when the canoe
from Twin Lakes portages eternity...
wearing the wedding weeds (borrowed plenty
from burrow-boroughs), piping a tuba, anew, anew...

 
Like that palimpsest of voluminous vellum
from Byzantium scraped clear of its cleaner
scraps – peelings peeled back to one keen
peal of Athenian demos-voice (deep hum).

 
So the astigmatism of servant time
serves at the will of earth's upturnings.
These mumblings of double vision – rings
of wedding vows... (still curve at well's rim).