lanthanum 6.20

20

So the year tends toward its own dregs. Nigredo
for alchemist, those last pale yellow lozenges
‘gainst midnight arms of prehistoric elms.
Shadowy, nigh-horizontal sunlight. So.

Imagine that alchemist, that Blackstone-monk
with rusty scales, takes measure of the earth
entire. In Bruegel-twilight, crepuscular serf-
surf ‒ inch-line of frost-crystal, along a trunk

of winter iron. Sanctioned, authorized & liable
for the fate of the whole round wobbly pear.
In trust (light apples in hand). A solitary-planetary
& dou-doughty deed, O rotund Prospero (fragile

island, Ariel). Where sophists, pharisees &
patchy politicians (pirate-parasites) declaim
a claim ‒ then let the moody gardener (Jaimie
or Sam) stand up, & (halting) speak ‒ cry clear

for all to hear. For the commonweal, the spiritual
union (weightless lightwing over the battlefield).
There’s more Horatio in your philosophy, field
sparrow ‒ more heavenly earth, most punctual

stool-pigeon. The king (his name was numbered)
‒ the king must die. Hard to conceive the rune
who’s most yourself : singular substantial royal
Person, triple-crossed (cross-haired).

Decorated (on the Niger River). Like a constellation
now... tickle-tingling primordial spinal Milky Way
(ancestral habitat-belfry of fire). One Bukovina
baobab ‒ goldfinch in eld elm tree (the sun).

11.18.10