509 to 509

Wrote another quasi-occasional poem today.  A Thanksgiving yodel, completed at exactly 5:09 p.m. this afternoon.  I grew up at 509 Arthur St., in the Mendelssohn neighborhood of Edina/Hopkins (first settled in the 19th century by a bunch of young musicians of the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, hence its name).  & now, after much travail, my parents have moved to the Episcopal Home (senior living) near their old neighborhood of Tower Hill (Minneapolis) - into apartment # 509.  I'm very glad they made it there before Thanksgiving.  "There's a divinity that shapes our ends / Rough-hew them how we will." (Hamlet)

MIRROR LAKES

The drizzle of sleet, monotonous

snare drum.  New England gloom

(Nor’easter coming).  To whom

shall we give thanks, U.S.?

Fields furl their cornucopia

to pumpkin horns.  Blow,

milkweed, for Fergus now –

so low on oil of gladness.  Yeah.

Can you loop some snarly comet

with your lariat?  Invite

that hobo down the street?

Unleash the joy in Joyce – the might

in Lincoln’s painful mite?  Mosey

on up with Moses, Jordan

way – beach Promised Land

in Plymouth sand?  Say yes in Yeshuee?

Wampum rests with Wampanoags.

Holidays rewind

red Vinland soil – to bind

the serpent to Kid George’s

fleecy cradle-calumet.  Your eyes

are Mirror Lakes, child;

Mendelssohn’s a neighborhood

for Minnesota symphonies;

the deep stars comprehend our schemes.

The bears all harmonize

& tumble through the skies

their growling round (hearth-beams).

      11.26.14