musing on time passing

OPEN SEA

Hobo lingers in his old hideout,

musing on Time passing

inexorable, unceasing.

Even that Son of Man, no doubt,

is subject to the steady stream.

That He rose from the dead

after the carmine dogwood

petals bled... is like a dream –

when broken Magdalen beheld

Him, held Him tight

as she lay, hid by night

stone still, in sleep – felled

by the noon nightmare upon the hill.

It is a mystery

too deep for Hobo, or for me.

Jesus submitted to the Father’s will –

not on Golgotha, but with every beat

of that red pulsing wheel

of Ocean River (waxy seal

for human honeycomb – complete

sweet sign of infinite benevolence).

My yellowing maroon

& off-white leaf-pontoon...

my Hobo raft snaking past violence,

my dogwood octagon, shaved off

by Time into a simple

convex fish-vessel...

my melting hexagon, snow-staff

                *

of almond blooms, shading a well

in Palestine... stone skiff

leaping Gennesaret – if

only all these metaphors knot in one spell!

The spiral of a fingerprint

in limestone sea-cave

might unfurl a concave

hour-glass – etch kind intent

in pregnant sheets aslant the wind.

Each step taken, each

wave-slap on the beach

will glance to faceted perfection – find

ripe summa in a planetary plan;

the ants have theirs, Hobo

his role to play – go

find her, who unveils the sun of Man!

Magnanimous dome (Emanu-el’s)

on Morris Avenue,

your turtleshell (blue

arc of sky over her Book of Kells)

circumferences a shady tree

of leafy ladders (Jacob’s,

Jonah’s... Honest Abe’s).

We climb together, you & me,

through thunderclouds of poetry –

counting the heartbeats

as we rise... fleets

thread the Gate, to open sea.

7.10.17