17

 
We want the sound of equilibrium.
We want the rusty iron gate to creak
again (back, forth).  For the sake of
old heartache, we want the pendulum

 
to swing.  Over there, over the last
grassy knoll, up on the bluffs above
St. Paul - a pantomime of puppy love
plum forgotten until now (gently cast

 
from Highland Park).  Continuum-
dream - sound muffled, mollified
by atmosphere - the hurdy-gurdy
fairground, bells of heifers, hums

 
of farmers... tinkle of the carousel.
There there's a lowing going round
set to its quaint somnolent sound.
And the hand of the hired hand - well,

 
it's part of an old diurnal masquerade -
the workingman's deus ex machina,
red with a reddish light-patina
shed by his blue-ribbon shed.

 
Obscurely the painter's fingers trace
a radius beneath the horsehair panoply.
Locked in the pigment, ineluctably
a lamp is poured into the sky's dark face.

 
You will behold her, limpid countryman,
her priest of evanescence... mottled
ingenue inside a moss-green bottle-
ship from Ecuador (mosquito'd master plan).