9.14.2017

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-wingรจd 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

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