one Coke hand

LILAC-JOY

High fan of infant cottonwood leaves.

Their light-green spray,

pale sign of spring today.

Come late (come early May).  Cleaves

to the swollen river – spewing snowmelt,

winter flotsam, garbage.

Nature floats this mirage

of metaphors... for what the Sibyl spelt.

Your sister-dove (Jeannette-Columbia).

Shade of Beatrice –

plumb-bob Eurydice,

sounding the depths of Sheol (ephphatha).

On this day in 1775

Little Rhody broke the tie

with Mother England.  Die

is cast.  The wasps have left the hive.

Still an ineffable spider-bridge

dangles its catenary M

between two pillars.  Hymn

of Wisdom’s unbreakable pledge –

octave uniting heaven & human,

person to person – one

Coke hand, spun

to Ocean State... wide chordal span!

Your mirror of primordial Sea

(reflecting golden doors

of Baptistery) pours

lilac-joy – Love’s ripe To Be.

5.4.18