12.13.2016

the whole sweet Seine will glow



TINY BULB

A ghost of snow hung in the air
like glittering smoke.
Dusted from a hemlock
by a twirling jay – like nothing there.

Harsh cold rain goes crystalline,
shines in white waves
of domes (over sea-caves,
graves of grass).  Adamantine

turtleshell or judgement seat
of green sea-swell
beyond heaven & hell...
only a murmur makes complete

your copper frame, chรจre Liberty.
Emerald cicada husked
in tamaracks, at dusk –
vesture & camouflage for thee,

O soul set free!  Out of the spiral
gloom of time you come,
crown of the human kingdom –
like yellow-black spry swallowtail

up from your petrified cocoon,
or incognito monarch
skittering from ark
to ark (Amsterdam-Rangoon

Line – Mendelssohn to Mexico)
– or like a tiny bulb
planted in mirror-hub
of rose islands – blazing so

                *

bright the whole sweet Seine will glow
from end to end –
the safety net, my friend!
Jonah’s repast (Apollinaire’s tomorrow).

Thus the planet’s plain warm hearth
was set in diamond
& salt – with two kind
hands melded was gentle Earth

into a homely heart (Heimlich
maneuver from afar).
Gates cracked ajar –
the broken cistern, Cain’s conflict –

the Minotaur in every man –
the frozen ideologies,
bitter mythologies
of gulag-mind, in her began

to melt... the light played on the iron
spring... rust turned
green... mold burned
clear... the Psyche-lamp of Zion

lifted from the harbor.  Then
that fireplace couch of ages
in the molten kiln of sages
rose from black soil – crowed the Hen-

Cock!  Morning gathering beneath
the lighthouse surfaced
in your radiant face
O Matrix of candescent wreath.

12.13.16

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