an aria of Ariel

SAFETY NETS

On the vast floor of the nave at Chartres

a golden labyrinth

circles the square.  Myth

of primal clay, where everything starts

over... springs up from the ground;

even the epic poem

circles back toward home –

Thanksgiving hearth of heaven, lost

& found.  It is an Ithaca

where Daphne-laurel molts

back to Penelope – bolts

from the yarn, like Minnehaha

laughing upstream toward Itasca –

primeval Persephone

(O veritas caput).  She

looms at warp speed, like an aria

of Ariel – zips through the Gateway

Arch, to Providence –

races around, from Florence

to the Golden Gate, where she will play

out safety nets, & save the day –

& from Pacific to New York

lift up her blazing fork

of sea-green, Lincoln-penny Liberté.

She is the almond in a nest of nests –

a hollow echo-tomb

from which Columbia will bloom

again, spring-fed by Galilean breasts.

9.20.16