8.24.2016

light gleams in Colchis


ANCIENT KEY
                                No estoy yo aqui que soy tu madre?

The spiral molluscs from Precambrian seabed
in the limestone facing by the door
remind me of you; the bent lyre
of the cottonwood by the riverbank led

me back to you too – bent over your clay
wheel, shaping the river-mud
into a smiling imago.  We tread
your maze toward home, thread-spun Ariadne.

That Mexican Last Supper diorama –
chipped clay bread-&-wine feast
you repaired... bones of a beast
lifted from bloodlines, toward a panorama.

Light from a distant prison window
gleams in Colchis.  Maximus
knots three bright strands
beneath a keystone arch – mingled so,

they mark a brow with perfect diamond,
one spark of dancing flame.
Perfection is the frame
of right accomplishment – the ripe almond

of what thou lovest well.  Well-founded
Gateway Arch, the light flows
east to west – what Rhodos grows
for liberty, for justice (lightning-grounded,

here & now).  Crossed in St. Louis
by Rio del Espiritu – & there
one eerie soaring flare
of Raven passing through (southwest)

                    *

inks the last answering quipu
to that sweet hypothesis
of sea-blue Maximus –
the imago, a kind of kindly Manitou-

insignia.  Seal of copper Penny
gleaming from the bottomland;
Columbian wish-well (one hand-
eye palms its moss-green rim... see?).

Southwest, southwest... Cautantowwit,
drawn like a Malcolm, like
a black-orange monarch
through the double dove-doors of that

moonlit mirror, into Mexico –
to touch the orange checkmate
of an azure Golden Gate.
Stubborn, impoverished, soft Frisco

mule!  Lifting the ancient key
of human harmony
again, for you, for me –
netting the breathing sail of safety

there, at last – for Juliet,
for John, for Weldon,
Malcolm, Hart... for everyone
yearning, unreconciled, disconsolate;

& across vast timespace hollows
her winged hands & face
stir courage to embrace –
Grace penetrates the Gates (& Rose).

8.24.16

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