matrix of the capital

TINY ANCHOR

Charles L’Enfant painted a watercolor

panorama, 14 inches

by 7 feet long, which shows

the Continental Army by the Hudson River

at Verplanck’s Point (1782).

Its curator (Phil Mead)

once noticed what appeared

to be a mini-tepee notched in view –

looking vaguely familiar...

why?  That very canvas

tent (George Washington’s)

was standing in a nearby corner

of his own museum.  From tiny sketches

mighty plants may grow –

L’Enfant would later sow

the plans for D.C.’s marble stretches

(George’s tent of meeting thus

the matrix of the capital).

We are all infants, after all.

Whence comes this rolling wondrous

theatre in the round?  Each regiment

on the accompanying chart

plays its own part –

a seahorse anchor figuring Rhode Island

(Providence for African, Native 

American recruits).

Even Okean has roots –

one sign given, that we might live

                  *

like Jonah (which means turtledove)

descending, by enormous

& galactic routes

from lambent & egalitarian beehive

on high – the very cosmopolitan

& chaste kingdom of God –

chaste, as out of Novgorod

by way of Osip (Mandelstamian)...

Each local soul circles toward Providence

as moth toward firelight.

Only fly right

into the center of her blazing salience –

you’ll see the laws of city & country

meld to conformity

with that great mutuality

Martin proclaimed – God’s wakan charity.

                  *

This lonely river-path of Hobo

down the sky’s time-lapse

touches a key, perhaps.

His mother’s clay is rolling, so;

out of that gray whale’s brow of sadness

flows a solidarity

escried by Raven – see?

Au mer... À Mère I caw (southwest,

southwest)... Cautantowwit, or Noah’s

pilot, feeding crumbs...

deep distant drums

of Thunderbird.  Silence (Cahokia’s).

11.15.17