5.21.2012

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 feelTo be the figment of a dream...
a hard crust blown across exigent ice, extreme
SiberiaUnderstand, now... so life is scored
for every woman, every manSo each is scarred.
A blade shall pierce your own soul too, the prophet
criedYet buried hearts will soar again, from lofted
cribs of ash & cottonwoodredwings, fire-starred.
  5.21.12

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