A ruffled mirror

INFANT BIRDS

In the ruffled mirror of the lake

scatter sibylline shards

of ice-light – winsome chaos

fabulating carousels a child might make.

To the attunement of a ball of clay

dissolving into Mendelssohn

spring mud – spry union-

unison of infant birds (with day).

It cannot last, cry Paul & Augustine.

Yet lasted long enough,

croons woodman Joseph’s

son – justifying all her children.

Afternoons of used-up antique men

shift with shy Psyche –

hope to melancholy,

grief to resolve (determination).

Dusk filters into codex ink.

The dapple of the harbor

shrinks to one iron

anchor, parallactic (in the drink).

Yet teeming Earth still whispers

its new whorl – the mind

rewinds, sea-myths unbind

their clams.  Heroes (Coke, Roger)

ripple in the river, over the rim

of light birch canoe;

Psyche’s eyelids flicker too,

tap signals from tall Joachim.

12.4.15

Grace Ravlin, Gloucester (ca. 1920s)