Poem for a New Year

SIMPLE PRELUDE

Quietness in Providence,

for them that can afford.

Calm streets (no Ford

Blunders).  Sabbath silence.

Another year is gathered in

to history.  Beautiful

vast former battlefields

blend into distance now (someone

booms a bell across a plain).

Only earth remains.

Infinity stains

each rusted blade, unreckoned pain.

Have you not felt, have you not seen

the lovely icon of

her face, beamed from above

on limpid threads – buried in the grass

so green?  Trepanned Apollinaire

smokes by her bedside,

spies stars in tears that slide

across her wide land’s cheek.  There,

there.  Everywoman wears

Night’s 99 candles now,

he mumbles.  On your brow

anonymous rain rinses the lairs

of lost crusaders, broken kings.

Your rustic diorama’s

humble panorama

magnifies in miniature – brings

crèche-gifts from the galaxy

to crushed paisan, bent

slave, dishonored filament

of glory.  A raven’s orthodoxy,

player’s rule – world-overturning

in one mild eye’s glance.

Epiphany or trance

transfigured into bird-learning –

the earth seen through a blade of grass,

a child’s infinity –

cosmic society

of spooky charity – forgiveness

born of magnanimity (O just

justice) & gratitude

(just being).  Simple prelude...

groaning Shostakovich, glittering dust

of Bach & Mendelssohn – a swirl

of sound now shapes your

ghostly figure (hour-

glass, bright everlasting Pearl) –

                     *

Two strands crossed, hidden in a field.

Of night & day, of earth

& sky, of raven-black

& light-brown, blonde.  A low tone sealed

their bond, a hum, a servant-song –

& then a lens caught fire

magnifying everywhere

Love’s equanimity (calm tuning-prong).

12.31.14