aqueducts for bumblebees

JESTER THREADS

In the anonymous late grass,

among the stray brown

stalks like overgrown

aqueducts for bumblebees

Hobo looks off toward the flesh-

tone Mississippi bridge.

He yearns for the courage

to be like Woodpecker, in his mesh

of stealthy wasps & stolen honey –

I mean that Thunderbird,

drilling his fiery word

dovetailing out of Galilee;

the lightning rod atop the dome

whose inner lining is mosaic;

a kingfisher, whose beak

flings Geryon from his kingdom.

Late August air grows clear, autumnal.

He’ll shed his jester threads

like Hal doffs Falstaff duds

& lie down by the Rio del

Espiritu Santo.  Watch how that firebird

melts hearts into unison –

lifts into comprehension

both Jerusalem & Athens, toward

a chastened & revived Cosmopolis

where neighbor-love is measure

of the planetary future... &

then he’ll mosey back to Minneapolis.

8.24.18