PRIMITIVE FRESCO
These cottonwood sentinels beside the river
in the early March sunlight.
May their sense of being right
prevail, Persephone return (forever).
My draft of yearning whispers from
bare cave. Slight air
of seashore lingers there,
like early dream of motherland. Home
in a memory of pinewoods, tamarack;
Ravenna in a film
of moss-green idiom –
child-realm of Umbrian yak-yak,
Firenze burble-babble. One gold hinge
arcs sheltering lintel
over intelligible
gate of Jubilee... & it is so arranged
we never leave the shining ring.
Like a rock of Magdala
muttering ephphatha
our bread & wine are splashed with brine,
salted with everlastingness;
my primitive fresco
roughly points to show
how everything begins to bless –
when Psyche lifts from waterfall
& Raven (with a flick
of wing) is suddenly quick
Turtledove (threshold within us all).
3.2.16
These cottonwood sentinels beside the river in the early March sunlight are ablaze with the evocation of an America that might have happened in poetry had Stevens been able to admit to himself that Persephone had gone missing somewhere... this picks up the lost trail... a way back?
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