Complex of the six directions

MANGER-HAVEN

Everywhere a vector-vortex,

a 3-dimensional crane-

liftoff.  A diagonal plane

of tracer-tracks – trains, trucks,

jet-like chariots surround this

Shriners’ hideaway, where

limping children play.

Mute manger-haven, beneath curious

folksy lunar scimitar 

insignia. Granddad’s

old Buick neighborhood.

Born on Epiphany, you are

a kindly prehistoric whisper-

star, remote but bright.

Hum beneath black-white

acrid mercury bath – Big Dipper

trench-canoe.  Grave air-casket

you portage over your head,

smiling beyond dread

fumes of one Martian marble planet...

So every local khipu-knot’s

a complex of the six

directions – Shakespeare’s

skullcap, Pushkin’s troika-stop –

your eschatology through tundra,

mangy Everyman.

Lambent beatitude, then –

shaggy speech, shepherd apocrypha.

1.6.16 

John Ravlin, Boundary Waters Canoe Area, MN  (1940s)

Woods behind Shriner's Hospital, Minneapolis