I have a dream

PLAIN CLAY

I have a dream, sang the buffalo-

voice, I have a dream –

when the will to redeem

lifts a heavy soul, bent low

amid murky murmurs of lost

innocence, out of the lake

of fire (nightmare). Take

my hand, come to this Pentecost –

harvest of kid from lambent cave

(wick drawn from water

up to Pharaoh’s daughter –

firefly corn-blaze, flickering in nave).

Lean petrified wraiths gaze, wingèd

through Ravenna gloom.

Dante walks home,

his lesson fin (carving INTREPID

into night’s milky ark of galaxies).

A net resolves to surf;

a seine makes common turf

out of plain clay – paradoxical

Francisco-mule, clip-clop clumping

until he climb the octahedral

keystone of the cathedral –

orange Chinese lantern, miming

remote & lonely lighthouses

(Rose Island Light, for

Narragansett raven-shore).

Sun in your beak (Cautantowwit’s).

8.28.17