Memory is full of Providence

FALL STEPS

                           i.m. Henry Shelton

Fall steps softly to the door

beside the river now.

Memory, somehow

is full of Providence today – your

little hideaway of brave

adorable & free

spirits, whom to thee

were given – opening, wave on wave

sea-gates of joy & liberty.

Like that dear one

on Petersburg pontoon

floated to town – Elena, she

of the midnight sun – as if an emerald

kamen-ring of Gumilev

(tattooed ghost-brave)

stood there, incarnate – held

my hand, like Word made Flesh – began

to dance & sing; as if

Columba on his acorn skiff

arrived in New York harbor – shine,

Franco-Irish lantern – beam

your torch around the globe!

Moss-copper robe

whose folds encompass freedom’s dream

whose web of mutuality

is wind-blown sail

on cosmic Ocean trail

chaste vision of equality

                 *

tall northern pine who will prevail

like massive cedar tree

in Puget Sound   like she

who danced the Shaker upland trail

to soul freedom, with John Slocum

or Henry Shelton in

Rhode Eye   Franciscan

mule of social justice   plumb

spine of Blackstone’s Catholic Oak

or Williams’ open hand

give me your poor... stand

in my healing shade... Manitou spoke

on Wisdom’s dancing-wheel of joy!

& my hoarse scar-tattoo

on Queequeg’s silver-blue

casket – my burbled Jaybird cry,

confessional – only an ochre scratch

on earliest cave-wall;

only a golden ball

of Ariadne-wool, wet sheepish match

balled-up by selfishness.  Who lit out

for that stony kingdom –

ancient Big Rock Mountain,

deeper firmament, beneath the shout

of pokey politics – that Cosmosphere

of lovingkindness, where

the soul finds Primavera air

& breathes... & sighs... & lives forever.

9.23.16

4th of July, Providence harbor