8.04.2011

Lanthanum 8.18



18

From Cahokian mundus in heartland, soaring
up a Finnish ladder (lofty thought-swerve)
to the finish line. Candelabra, spinal-nerve...
red leaves, rain-skimming back to commingling

clay. Like that vine planted on Jacob’s dream-
limestone, on the way from Padanaram ‒
after wrassling with a light-bermed, harum-
scarum heavyweight... meet the extreme

bow-taut communion (eyes, tears). Of sense,
intelligence. Here. Hear. Only here ‒ inhering
in your heart. So the mandala-rose coheres,
nearing... looms, beginning (woven-fine parlance).

This grail, this spousal, this conjunction ‒
plainchant of YHWH-shade, keening ‒ your
turtle-ghost, who haunts us, here & there...
sad-merry morsel, Everyman : Louis’ royal

unction-prayer (inward, homeward). Bare.
There are as many spirit-trails into this wood
as there are feet to walk them : the neighborhood
is infinite : but the way is narrow, drear ‒ your

own (lead-Lenten plumbline). Shaking off
the grave, the gravity, is not for Icarus,
but Israel (after the last sacrifice,
the burial). 12 gates to the city, O

my Lord
. So, after 12 moons & a year
of doubtful drought, this double prong (folk-
tuning tong) leaps as a willow branch (divining,
rude) in my hands ‒ an eye in my hand. Here.

8.4.11

1 comment:

Henry Gould said...

Just a couple notes on this : Jacob/Israel is the patriarch who wrestled with the angel & saw the ladder to heaven in a dream (Bk of Genesis). The "eye in hand" was a recurrent glyph/symbol for the ancient precolumbian mound builders ("mundus" builders) in the Mississippi region (Cahokia, et al). The Cahokia mounds are across the river from the Gateway Arch monument in St. Louis (which appeared, mysteriously, in a dream I had a few yrs ago - & which has a lot to do with the motives & shape of this poem).