12.31.2014

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 threadsburied 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


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