Sketch (from canoe)

BEE-STING

The rough sketch reaches back

so deep into beforetimes

like those caves of limestone

dolphins, walking... some refraction

in the water-filter flips Time over

into clear half-moonlight,

where Word-is-Psyche

typed into a graveyard clover

prints snowfeet along Minnesota

River, cemetery

ridge of Irish faery-

land (Apollinaire in Georgia).

Hard to explain.  Grace Ravlin

what thou lovest well

this garden, under spell

of summer sun (your Washington

laboratory).  Someone brave

magnanimous & kind

who vaults the epic rind

from orange threadspan (architrave

of salt-blue ice).  An Ocean State

of mind, where ships sail

slowly down to Coral

Sound, abeam some forthright

rabbit lighthouse, trembling.

Forgive me, it is so.

Earth is very slow

a-borning.  Here (one dead bee-sting).

10.19.15