Lanthanum 11.12

12

  remembering John Tagliabue (1923-2006)

In the uncertain light of early dawn, I woke to find

the ghostly presence of Natasha, still nearby.

A morning mist flooded our tree-limb hideaway

& heavy branches seemed to dissolve... distend...

turn insubstantial.  This cloud breathes everywhere,

she said; we’re perched on limb of Ocean River – sea

where all the streams converge.  Look now, Henry :

you’ll see a figure for enwombed Man – a butterfly

entombed – whence Melchizedek from prism flies.

Again she raised her hexmiroir, green-rimmed

with copper rust.  I looked.  My sight grew dim,

obscured by cloud... fine rain across my eyes...

& then I saw him, through the pre-dawn haze.  An

old man, limping bravely toward me... in slouch hat,

with white birch cane.  Gosh – is it really you, Walt?

I exclaimed.  The same, he said, smiling lazily (a

blade of wheat seesawing from his lips).  I’ve come

to give you a dab of bardic courage, boy.  Cosmic

Union’s the nation we maintain : an epithalamic

verse revives the universe.  Just as I hummed

sweet pity over writhing youngsters, thrust

my hand into their wounds, to heal – to turn

blocked hornets of flint to water-myrrh – so

each deed of heartfelt care is bound in trust

to Everlivingness : her regal token, promised here

on earth (who’s omnipresent as the summer grass).

The door’s agape!  Torn off, unhinged! – yes, yes,

O sage of stone Jack Diamond Elk!  Dance!  Cheer!

    5.31.12

Lanthanum 11.11

11

The World War I Monument was dedicated on the eleventh anniversary

of the Armistice on November 11, 1929  – Historic American Buildings Survey, 1987

my subject is war, and the pity of war

Toward dusk, a rich mauve-rose light filtered

from the western ridge through Providence.

A breeze ruffled leaves of the immense pin-

oak, where I hid with my elusive shepherdess

(Natasha).  The town was blossoming before us

in its mixing-bowl of streams : violet shadows

welded with gray stones, the whine of cars;

the bay, the ocean shantied in the distance.

A spirit penetrates this place, Natasha said; but

how will they reckon who girds their dream?

Look here.  She opens up a kind of prism –

doubled, hexagonal – crystalline.  I angle out

through the lens.  Like a sea-kaleidoscope

the city coalesced in a clerestory (swelled,

suffused with lambent mist).  Its sevenfold

spectrum rayed from each dewlet, opening

in blinding jets toward an echo-arch, far

overhead... where the evening star (calm,

sweet, peaceful) seemed to send this balm

sailing back to the earth.  You hardly know

your town, do you?  Natasha smiled.  This civitas,

this union, elegant grace & equilibrium – all this

is vaulted up in sacrifice.  I looked to the river’s

edge.  The fluted pillar of the Monument rose

to pierce the perimeter of Providence –

where lady Victory remembers time-worn,

bone-tired streets... nurses a wounded crown

of blistered plows.  Let the Requiem commence.

5.30.12

Lanthanum 11.10

10

Again I found myself awake in a strange place,

lost.  It was dark; all around me curled sinewy-

sinuous oak branches, rasping leaves... a river

of night-limbs, laired... entangled in Medusa’s

hair.  I was scared... until I felt the tender touch

of Natasha’s fingers on my neck.  Where are we?

Home : there’s no more hoboing for you.  Where’s

home?  In Providence.  Yes... there stayed the reach

of Roger’s flinty hand, as ever, toward the dome

of his state’s capitol, below...  This is Natasha’s

temple, harbored, hidden in oak – to wash

the ripe earth clean again, survey Jerusalem

anew.  You’re going to help me.  How? I wondered.

Recall that phrase of Roger’s – ‘til He comes

to tear down Kings & Pow’rs... – this conundrum

you must grasp & comprehend : it is the corner-

stone of harmony.  Can exist no peace, justice

or liberty, ‘til righteousness rules in one’s soul;

‘til goodness reigns – reins in the fearful circles

of anxious desire, despair – our own blind circus

of deception, malice, greed... lust, vanity & pride

that guides the whole world into sordid Babylon.

This is Roger’s sense : when Wisdom comes again

she will disintegrate those chains, & raise the dead

to spiritual delight – as he would say, soul liberty.

Not to control the sundry authorities & governors

chosen by men... but to reveal the brooding aegis

of this Agape – & their recovered telos in eternity.

5.29.12

Lanthanum 11.9

9    MEMORIAL DAY

A hush falls over the solemn day.  The limping

soldier, under his faded cap, star-hemmed, draws

near – sketching (beneath a tent of constellations)

his cup of cups, his homeless homeland.  Mumbling

between 1 point 2... and 1 point 3...  His name’s

unknown (only one of a moth of nullifieds).  Bit

from all-in-all sky-cavern.  Reversible earth-vault

smashed into milky spudscape (gala gallows-game).

Psyche, Blue Morpho... Monarch, Viceroy... just

a little blue babycap of brimful infant-joy – feet

caught amid nets of fire-teeth, anger-spite.  Yet

he mumble-burbles... foolish little smile-wastrel!

Wake, worlds! he yells.  Awake, windowless ocean!

The fire encircles his googol-cranium – bullets

of cheap death, meant for millions – caskets

for Notre Dame.  See the raisin fireseed, O man!

he prunes, in travail.  Turn, shun the shells

of brass, people – toward cradle-rockament

of honeybees!  Chase cryptic fundamental path

that climbs, my androids, through these hells

of displaced nadir-wells... war-theatre theatres

devised by Everyman – us, prodigo drifter-sons!  

An Arabian hula-hoop wheeled by, airborne;

& then I seemed to see his gypsy stepmother

limp alongside him, abeam resinous galaxies.

Eyes closed – across my retina, like a wheel

aflame.  Who sketched (feeling her way) on

limestone slab... Stickman.  A gate of gates.

    5.28.12

Lanthanum 11.8

8

Like Tom Thumb in a vertigo-revery, I woke

disoriented – as if tossed through the spiral

of a huge index fingerprint.  & when the whirl

finally subsided, I lay in the grass – my back

curled against the foot of an oak.  It was

Prospect Park.  Roger stepped as ever through

his granite portal; a lone mourning dove (blue-

white-silvery) was fluting low, ruffling feathers,

perched on Williams’ outlimned limb.  A tiny

white parachute of cottonwood seed softly 

sailed by (28 inches over my head).  Swiftly

the dove rose – & dove into the green tapestry

of a horse chestnut tree.  & then again I heard her

voice – Natasha’s – from the depth of that mountain

of candle-blooms (tiered ark-menorah).  A wind- 

whisper... like susurrus of light rushes over

us.  Henry... you’ve left behind old Hobo now.

You’ve made the first circuit of a rainbow triad,

surveyed your Lazarusland with my midnight-

sunlit calipers.  Look again : retrace the furrow

of that blooming plow.  I stood beside Roger

at the edge of the cliff, gazed west again... & saw

a triple rainbow, through a haze of dew.  Below,

plunged in Cahokia ground, that silver tuning-fork –

droning, vibrating to an octave chord (B-flat).

& there, beneath the soaring span, the russet

figure of a mighty one... shrouded in delicate

glittering seraphim-feathers, graven : OLIVET.

5.26.12

Lanthanum 11.7

7

The air grew clearer as the day came on;

& as I pursued Natasha’s line of sight

hovering there on her cloud-pillows, a bright

embrasure of gray granite, cropping a stone man,

emerged.  Held firm on cliffside, like portal-

prow.  His feet in wave-laved point of a canoe,

hand primed avast Providence (piano man’s true

blindsight, blessed).  He eyes a pencil-scrawl

on the horizon... Who’s like the righteous man?

Natasha said.  A fire burns in his bones

for libertà, justizia.  Uneasy conscience is

life-sign... forthright unfettered courage can

cast up a hero from quiescent dust, its cautious

round.  Williams reckoned pride of common law

on rough-shod knees of Edward Coke.  He saw

firsthand the power of right reason over kings

& all their spectral sway – sensed universal

equity... grand springtide of a cosmic Jubilee.

Yet such zeal-fever marrows deeper still.  See

how it harries him from home, to find life-swell

(a refugee) in wilderness – an alien (taken in

by wise Melchiz-Canonicus, that kindly chief).

Good will; natural law; Love’s omnipresent gift

of reciprocity... the civil peace : a final token

of redemption.  I listened to Natasha’s obscure

speech... Hope’s the anchor of the soul, she said.

& suddenly her cloudswept car whorled... bedded

in oasis-spiral.  Feathered palm’s imprimature.

5.24.12

Lanthanum 11.6

6

We’ll turn back homeward now, Natasha said.

She spun me round again, facing east – I was

still wobbling like a pelican – so, with a smile

she said, Come, join me in my strato-sled.

We lounged in the cockpit, rested for a moment

(just the twinkle of an almond eye).  She pointed

through that shimmer-haze, toward the Atlantic

– azure screen that mingled sea & sky.  A tent

of tangled green stood ‘mid rainbow circumflex

(a vivid, vernal dome).  This is the secret house

of William Blackstone – stray self-exiled priest

– the one who went to live with Narragansetts,

Wampanoags. & then I saw the blurry figure

of a man – arms raised, framed by that wooden

fogbound alcove.  In a free wilderness, beholden

to none, he found a place to start anew – your

pioneer of spiritual liberty (& grace, & peace,

& happiness).  Preached kindly, bravely there

under his Catholic Oak... yet his real treasure –

pearl past compare – was Sabbath-day release;

in lone prayer, on Study Hill, he fixed his gaze

within & through that wavering candleflame’s

dream-vision (victory).  Among his apple trees

– his Yellow Sweets – Will B. beheld the rays

of a round & ruddy world set free – some future

realm of Jubilee.  I glanced then over at Natasha

on her cloudy couch – saw another Madaleña... in

that dawnlit graveyard, weeping.  With a gardener.

5.23.12

Lanthanum 11.5

5

The sun slipped west, behind the brooding Rockies –

I found myself dangling feet, like Humpty-Dumpty

from perihelion of that great & empty catenary

swerve.  Get up, my circus-sister cries – turn

90 degrees – face North again.  I did... but

wobbling on that westerly, she took my hand,

said – balance on one foot.  Look overhead.

The sky was slowly shuttering – a royal blue...

& Venus lifted from the sea.  There, she pointed.

I saw the two cups pouring... & the small star

at the pivot, stoutly aflame – quiet Polaris,

galactic gate.  True, magnetic (Étoile du Nord).

Homeward, my integral soul, she murmurs.

Up to the source of this winding sound, this

wounding sign, of many waterfalls.  A mist

lay recumbent on a limpid stream, immured

in creamy limestone banks.  A stand of pines

& cedars circled round a spring, that played

unceasingly above a rocksmooth face.  Shade

of all that’s hidden from the proud, the vain...

I heard Natasha whisper, as the wind

washed through her hair, & mine.  Only

an outline, or a promise... flowing cleanly

through me, lifted to stand... (to understand).

You hear leafwhisper of the tree of life,

said she.  Yon early tree, forsaken for

false, glittering glory.  Yet joy will soar

in its manumission – translated to flight.

5.22.12

Lanthanum 11.4

4

I don’t know how long I lay there, gazing up

at summer sky-flocks, meandering across 

their bluegrass planes... hypnotic surf-race

over the surface of one shuttered lens.  Hope

springs in the North, Natasha muttered then;

everything coalesces in the North, she uttered

(cryptic sprite).  Or convalesces? countered

I.  You’ve read Recovery, my languid friend –

you know how that frail-minded, shattered poet

suffered, from beginning unto end.  I saw

his gawky bird-bones, feathered in the snow.

Despair can scatter limb from limb, disconsolate

lamb.  Then I felt once more the strange wind

of life & death, as it fluttered through the shade

of an immense, enkindled chestnut tree (widespread

& imperturbable).  I heard its low voice... wingèd,

kindly, comforting.  I turned to her.  Natasha,

tell me, what has Maximus Confessor-monk to do

with my mournful Confessional – his manic, panic 

woe?  – Henry, sd she, you’re his image : fashioned

in stealth, the blind sigh-lash of his mantic sword.

How does it feel?  To be the figment of a dream...

a hard crust blown across exigent ice, extreme

Siberia?  Understand, now... so life is scored

for every woman, every man.  So each is scarred.

A blade shall pierce your own soul too, the prophet

cried.  Yet buried hearts will soar again, from lofted

cribs of ash & cottonwood – redwings, fire-starred.

  5.21.12

Lanthanum 11.3

3

I opened my eyes, & found myself back in the dream –

prone, sway-backed, like Chaplin with a charley-horse

at apogee of that coruscant arch (center of universe).

No mustache, no charcoal suit... like that chump

who came to the marriage feast sans wedding gown

& was (& rightly) tossed.  My cloud-traveling

companion (infinitely patient, kind) still levitating

at my side, said then : What ails thee now, Hen?

O, nothing much, I said.  Homesickness, I guess.

I was, in fact, in mood most desolate.  Remorse

like a void in the solar plexus – vertiginous &

seasick nausea.  Dim sums of selfishness,

my life’s harvest : & underneath, a constant

unrequited yearning.  For cobalt-blue

& quiet northern lakes... mute evergreen

uprightness of those somber pines.  For what 

it meant (one ordinary family’s unquenchable

& selfless love).  What home is, Homer –

you prodigal wastrel.  Pure nuptial chamber

(parabolic, most symbolickal).  Humble... stable.

Father-motherly.  So I wept there, on that prow

of steel, for all my foolishness – its sour fruit

of absences & dust.  Natasha pitied me; brought

comfort, she.  Recall Memphis Melchizedek – how

at Ebenezer he defined 3 kinds of love.  You ark

a gap between eros & caritas.  Yet... disconsolate

beseech for grace might find (in shade) its infinite

source, surnaturel – sheer-welded in a rose matrix.

                            5.20.12

Lanthanum 11.2

2

We sped along still, ensconced there in Natasha’s

cumuloship – eastward again, just where Siberia

shakes hands with Alaska.  Circuiting our gala

rondure – RUS back to US.  Her eyelashes

curved upward as she said, All this loveliness

is but a bauble in the hand of heavenly Majesty.

See the high firmament – behold aurora borealis

rustle her garments of sevenfold light. & yes,

yes – so it was.  But I glanced below again,

glimpsed Vladivostok glimmer under clouds.

Called up my almond-eyed song-guide... his

mournful end.  Dark is the grave wherein

my friend is laid, I murmured to her (sweet

baobabushka).  Grieve not for Mandelstam,

she said.  The slave is free who’s overcome

fear, he crowed.  Recall that epigram : feat

so light, so resolute.  The soil beneath his lines’

diamond is steep – a cedar mount.  Sheepfold,

greenship... harboring seedlings of deep, full

faith.  I looked again... & saw Vancouver shine

below.  Sad memories of Malcolm Lowry rose.

A shattered river-shack... rock-candy almost-

paradise.  Torment.  O troubled, tortured host...

Her soft eye rested on me.  Remember Maximus,

his message, friend.  The edge of truth cuts

sharp & clean, even to distinguish between bone

& marrow.  Intellect, sense; body & soul... one

Love binds two.  Reunion, prodigal.  Victory at last.

                           5.16.12

Lanthanum 11.1

1

Natasha gripped my shoulder now, cleaved to me

like a loving sister-bird, as we drifted there

above the Black Sea’s shadow-sheen of somber,

opalescent azure (brooding, thought-like sea).

Here’s where we U-turn, Hobo – here’s

where we swerve north over lazy-hazy Rus.

To draft a sky-arc of clean air, bright birches’

bark – construct a parallelogram that veers

across the sphere’s Pacific rim.  We’re

heading home, aslant – drawn back (in single

file of feather-spun steel) to US.  Sharp angle

of mercy-return – cloud-seeded atmosphere

of prodigal redemption.  & as we swanned along

that quietness of steppes’ broad, slow streams

I began to hear, faintly, far-off, fresh fern-thyme

themes – frail tunes, thin stalks of columbine

or bluets in the northland moss.  Then, joining

in basso profundo, subterranean bells, voices –

drone-pitched so deep, deeper than all the halls

o’Hell.  Then – mingled with all these – pining

cries of endless flocks of cranes (fanning away

on either side of us) threaded those heights &

depths of tones into a stringent harmony – land-

bound, airborne – flashing Sibelius-sibillance (hey-

ey-yo).  Then, finally... as we edged closer now

to that granite beehive, limestone Petersburg...

I heard a human voice swoop (bird-like) – swell

& climb, like some rose-windowed water-prow.

Who’s this? I cried.  You know, Natasha smiled.

Your brother-yodeler, harping in harmony – your

Jonathan, David.  May’s Mendelsohnny goldie-joy

in lap of baobab – sprung free at last now.  Wild.

                        5.15.12

Lanthanum 10.24

24

So Hobo looked out from his high prospect

across the vast wide land spread out below

& felt his heart beat by an ancient woe, a

double blow : he heard inexorable time inflect

that planetary grandeur with its transience;

& sensed his solitude.  Mocked by his own,

held in contempt; shunned as well by a divine

distaste, indignant toward his lingering offense...

Natasha, where to now? he muttered gloomily.

Shall we follow that raven to the far southwest?

I’m like a desert pelican, an owl – or loneliest

sparrow on a rooftop, here.  I’m ready

to go.  His kindred pilot’s hazel eyes kindled

& glowed then from beneath her vapor-veil;

lingered on him awhile.  Our sail swells full,

old snowbrow – we’re headed further afield

in vision now – so far southwest, it’s east of

here.  Come, rusty one – we’re off to Lazicum.

She flicks her almond wand – they see some

wraith-like, venerable patriarch, his limbs

all scarred & crippled, in a threadbare robe

of pink & azure, like a child’s blanket.  This

ancient of days is Maximus, a simple priest –

exiled from splendor of Byzantium, the orb

& scepter of his regal wisdom (Solomonic

authority of Hagia Sophia) yet remains :

immaculate light-sprinkled manna-veins

seep from his glowing lips – symphonic

flute-flights, harmonies of cosmic gratitude.

Who, like a microcosmic firmament, upheld eld

octahedral honey-dome : one sinuous joy-welded

hum divine’s duet-triad’s glissando-plenitude.

                   5.15.12

Lanthanum 10.23

23

As Hobo pondered his shady Natasha’s pregnant

speech (a-bob there alongside him in a cloud-

vaporetto, at the Gate’s peak) – behold, he

could see all the way to San Fran! – scintillant

opal beside the Pacific – banded with bridges,

shrouded in lamb’swool mist, arrayed by sun.

Heaven almost for bums like him – christened

to praise ye paradigm of each flighty snowbird

a little touched in the head by God’s raven-

claw.  Fran, Francesco, Francisco, Francis...

padre of total self-divestment on the breast

of Everybird’s maker... wed to Povertà, even...

for unless you renounce all that you possess

you cannot be my disciple, he heard Someone

pronounce... & longed so to be!  Enough to shun

insipid hectoring of life-pride, flesh-pot, eye-lust...

(whirled, profane).  So poverello Hobo tried –

contemplating that contemplative template,

the liberating potentate of Give-It-All-Away.

& failed.  His 57 greedy pilots (of a fogged-

in, insular, self-centered bay) rebelled – slunk

blindly off.  & then Natasha spun around &

spoke.  Grace’s the catalytic converter – or bend

it another way, the photosynthetic plonk – thanks-

giving builds on, just as cellulose branches out

from simple water & light to be shady oasis.

This is the power source, Hobo.  Focus your

jerry-rig’d V – Don J’s hum-divin’ rain-be-troot.

                      5.14.12

Lanthanum 10.22

22

Still Hobo teetered there, at the summit of the Gate.

& his ship-shafty companion (call me Antho-USA –

today; no, never Morelia) bobbed in her cloud-bay

saddle, nearby.  See you’ve rambled, reprobate,

back to babblin’-on, she said.  Me sorry, trumbled

Tramp.  It’s his leadweight heart, near to tip him

off the mound.  That peak between the cherubim

tops off his mule-pack (time, distance) – a tomb-

light, Ton-El – up an infinite suffertrail, dank

with wasted ghosts.  Across a milkweed Sheol

to El Rosario (Michoacan, where monarchs go).

It’s my sister-bird, Juliet – left me & Hank

too soon – off that other Gate, flame-orange,

far west.  Left her father that way, too –

on his birthday.  Dark wings waved (hoodoo)

over her chair.  Mercy... wind so light & strange,

passing... like that flighty-shady nymph (dear cuz

undone).  I know.  Yet you shall shed your fear

& sorrow, Hobo – here : take this to wear

over your heart.  An anthem-band of bees &

columbine she offered, then – light-heavy

with tenderness.  When the milkweed monarch

lifted off for Mexico, he left behind his bark-

pontoon, linen cocoon – scented with rosemary

& rue, with myrrh & frankincense.  Hunt now,

Hobo, for the scent beyond sense, the dream

enfolding reason; you’ll find love’s cosmic scheme

compassed by prodigal return... compassion’s vow.

                         5.12.12