bring it all to bear (she-bear)

OPEN SEA

This Hobo, then – who he?

Lounging by Mississippi

lumpy, caw-caw-hokey

groaning accidentally for She-

Bear – as for primordial Iris.

Great purple monarch,

Theodora in birchbark –

like unto Micòl, or MLK (who is

& was & will be, by the light

of Milky Way).  His Big

Rock Candy brig

like a Black Sea barred-owl frigate

slants downstream, toward Colchis

or N’Orleans golden fleece –

& that arc, that St. Louis

centerpiece, shaped an L for his

Osiris lance (his buoyant flatboat

horizontal).  Troubled in mind,

some perpetual blind

haunt (old King Unfort, behind his moat).

& the whole American Dream lies

like dustbowl wasteland

of frosted heart, hard hand.

Sleepwalkers, unredeemed Henries

                     *

                     *

yoked to their stock.  An iron band

for an age of iron years,

until they can weep tears

again... up to the waist in river-sand.

Providence is in our eye,

he mumbles to himself.

In Ocean State – elf-

green, Rose Island red... (sigh).

Immaculate, born from the sea...

baptism for Columbia,

the Jonah-Dove.  Selah.

An overlay, a palimpsest... a little tree

of life & liberty... an ark

bearing a covenant

of loving-loyal parent,

child – for you, America.  Embark.

Into the open sea of universality,

where the human fingerprint

whorls to its fundament –

that knot of radiant mutuality –

the heart’s own ruby (in a sapphire ring).

So melt the iron with a diamond

flame, graft flowering almond

to the great oak’s mistletoe, & bring

the limping Hobo-King into her limpid

shade, moss-green & grey...

Hagia Sophia, who shall be

statutes of Liberty – dancing, embodied.

6.8.18