6.03.2012

Lanthanum 11.16


16
In the morning I was curious, asking Natasha for
her special, spectral spectacles again.  I wanted
to inspect her with them.  Diffidently she granted
my request... almost held back.  You want to share
what I give you secretly, in my arboreal chamber,
HenryBut this is not the wayHere, take
this lump of softened frankincensewill make
your vision clearer.  So I brush that amber
gum across the gem... & look at her.  Dark
glance of wounded eye.  Lightning-streak
across her brow, below a stormy jet-black
crown.  Guileless, she semaphors to trunk
of lithe hieroglyphic tree, nearby : aflower now
(untimely) with steep flocks of lamplit bloom.
& in that magnifying glass, the trunk became
a river, & the stream branched – overflown
with saints, philosophers... martyrs, kings (David
with psaltery, & Maximus with scroll; Abraham
with shepherd-crook, & Miriam, with arms
flung wide in song).  This Yesh-tree’s gravèd,
frescoed on a tiny church – forested away deep
in mountains of Romania, HenrySomeday
you’ll cross that porchPress tears of myrrh
across the little central lens.  I did.  Weep,
poets, for your hearts of brass!  I see Natasha
proceed slowly up a path, in Voronezh... & then
a desolate someone, by garden grave.  O Man...
these lenses but enlarge my eyes.  Ephphatha.
        6.3.12

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