Fontegaia, scrabbling along the surface...

24

 
Clouds on the move, painted gray sky   wind
through the maple trees   a raw-boned old oak
almost broken by drought   a single raven, stuck
up there   croaking his heart   out   of his mind

 
Sometimes these dark spells   in the middle of June
presage a quick downpour   hailstorm, flood   tornado
when   out of a gilded gloaming   prairie pleroma   O
look   there's a handsome cloud   like a black doubloon

 
nailed to the writhing mass   of an Iowa twister
an emptiness   at zero hour   &   I guess
I think about Berryman   on the bridge in Minneapolis
in December   teetering, drunk   get along, Mister

 
a game of Bohemian Solitaire   in Lutheran precincts
Hobo Card   turns up   Queen of Spades in
Neverland   or   looking ice in the eye, wades
out   O Johnny-go-lightly   so many skating rinks

 
there   used to be   & skittering along the ice
like oak leaves in January   nervous, unable to grasp
the hand   of the arm   hooked around mine (gasp!)
to a sober nostos   in the detox tank  (Minnesota nice)

 
& the Mississippi   still moving along under
the snow   this is raven country   (stylish rake
with fishknife beak &   snow-bandage,   caked
over one eye)   who dives for the target : (rotund)

 
Rainbow King   swaying   at the bottom of a well
sunlit harbinger of oaken fleets   sunk to the ground
a choral   sepulchre   (1132   fathom)   sounded
still sound (unraveled   ravishment of   Russian bells)

[Typing this on my little Neo in backyard today, there was a sudden downpour, had to run inside...]