Lanthanum 9.23

23

In a cabin cradled by snow & tamaracks, sore-
troubled Blackstone communed with his heart
in the night. Traced a fine curve eastward
(grey grainy graphite) from l’étoile du nord

into faint pale green-violet pre-dawn light
(opalescent, sweet). Unknown path, ellipse
of surf-steps... aslant a black inscrutable sea.
Out of blind fogs, a lens-canoe – its bowsprit

like a fiddlehead – frond of solemn fern-barge
in procession (distant funeral, in Colchis).
Suddenly WB beheld (swaddled in azure mist
over womb-dream) a limpid silhouette emerge.

Prisoner, exile – tongueless, handless. Dragged
through penumbral valley toward his doom.
Yet stood there (pregnant salt) so calm!
His frame a phosphorus glee-beam – ragged,

magnificent – thus this penetrating spirit
(meek monk Maximus) rose (knot-bound)
into Blackstone’s sea-scoured horizon – found!
Almond nuptial memoir-ring (moss-green circlet

of rust) hidden in neglected dovecote pockets,
old wild graybeard shepherds’ folds. Still water-
droplets, radiating through irenic granaries
(remote, deep wells). Sheepish prophets

rest secure there, in forested chorale-corral –
bathed in unfathomable réunionyes, who cherishes
frail rightness of each lambkin... O magnanimous
acknowledgment – Joy-Cognizance – O playpen Pal!

3.3.12