Lanthanum 9.4

4

Quiet Sunday in New England. November eye
(low glance through ancient tenement panes).
Lights up a fleeting countenance – shines
there, your face... Blackstone’s Mont-Joie,

beyond their corny wine. My learned Sunday
scholar, true to his spirit-bull’s eye. Attuned
thereby to all hope & charity – seedling rune
of human future (out of planetary ruin). Hey,

who kin shave us any good? the blind men cry
& gnaw each other’s shoulders. I’ll shew you
everlasting gladness, mumbles Will (from yew-
bough hermitage) – here in my hand : an eye

of murmuring myrrh. & he lay down on his bed.
Communed with mine own heart (silent
figman). Old monk, stooped figure, patient
at the morning gate (of the Land of the Dead).

Cryptic groundskeep. Eld priest, old shaman...
medicine man. Henry Thunder Winnebago
croons in the prairie twilight... I’d go
there with you, Henry – shed my skin –

become that other Henry – Henry Lightfoot,
released from grief at last (& gravity
too). The shadow of a peacock’s wing... see?
Through an eye-rainbow... serpentine sky-root.

Inverted arc, smiling through rain. Swim
through the shiny pillar, shuddered Jiminy Hobo
parked on his iron rail. Toward absolute zero.
Yon Ojibwa wheel (Arowra Bury All-Ice). Dream.

11.5.11