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