the plain senselessness of men

BIG WIND

Poverty is the best education.

Lady Poverty

& sister Poetry

are twins – identify with a long line

of holy fools, primitive peoples

punished into meekness

by most extreme duress.

Fort et dur (judicial phase).

Abe Lincoln with his Choctaw cheekbones,

Black Elk, Roger Williams,

William Blackstone... hymns

in the wilderness (breeched from stones)

float toward a gray middle ground

of sky.  Shy of names –

since the herm what frames

this Percy-dervish meadow-go-round

of constellations... only Manitou

will do (for some).  Great

Spirit.  Big Wind.  A late

night pathos, sifting through

cottonwood, magnolia.

Only the geometer

of beatitude & bitter

pain.  Familiar Maximus-Bertha

who rises (bulbous) from the plain

senselessness of men

like airy turtle-dove

machine – kind, moderate... humane.

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