just beyond my window

John Gould (U.S. Navy) with root beer, Minneapolis, ca. 1946

DEEP BREATH

September crickets in the darkness

just beyond my window

harping seasonal sorrow

elegize their summer quickness.

Cassini in her pure remoteness

plunges through the rings

of Saturn.  Airy things

(that fiery opera house in Venice,

flammatory lance of Beatrice)

coalesce toward autumn,

build a nest of flame

for rangy Thunderbird (eagle-Bice).

& is it only Ouroboros?

Boreas, recycling?

The ancient iron swing

Granddad assembled (90 years

ago) still creaks its aching 2-

note plaint (see-saw,

curse-us)... as though

the Iron Age were never through.

Someone must bear it all (above

rusty Titanic murk).

My father squared his cirque

on his last day.  His eye on Love,

one grip in mine, his other hand

traced a clear circle

over that whirl-debacle

with one thin finger... with one bound

                  *

beating the bounds of that vast realm

where Jesus & Black Elk

go roamin’ (with Melchizedek).

& if a 6 turn out to be 9... at the helm

6-wingèd seraphim feather the font

of Holy Wisdom.  Little well

of do-well... purling from hell

of trompe-desire, of chaine-ressentiment;

Alighieri’s checkmated yearning

tree-hum-yuled to heart’s

lightness... O sullen art’s

deep-harrowed aim – O desperate learning!

When men fall into Minotaur’s embrace

& Ariadne’s thread

snaps at the nail-head

one slight Rabbi-hair, O Falcon-Ace

might lift you from the corral waste

into fellowship

of Primavera soul-skip;

where lovely Manto-lips taste

intelligible everlasting bliss –

a porpoise laughs at death

& with one deep breath

huffs cobwebs off God’s gold telos :

that gardener of souls at dawn

lifting a toiling Job-

of-all-work by his nob...

Rachel out-sailing Ahab... Queequeg’s fin.

9.14.17