to Nathan Phillips

GREEN HABITAT

                                    to Nathan Phillips

The Mirror Lakes in Mendelssohn

were smooth & clear – were

mirrors of the weather,

mirrors of each other (twins).

Your mind’s a mirror too (cloudy

today, with intimations

of its limitations).

Looming earth, a child’s infinity...

In his mandorla of Ferrara

Giorgio hooked the canoe

against a garage wall (you

remember, Micòl?).  Observe, selah

its simple elegance & rightness.

Mirror of itself –

bowstring of Guelf

& Ghibelline.  O blessed senselessness!

I surmise the one you call Jesus Nazir

arose not in hothouse of fear

but a rural atmosphere –

full of parabolic melodies, limpid, near.

The Son of Man... the Son of Man...

not him, but you – & you...

like Hagia Sophia in a crew

of galley slaves.  Their submarine plan

winks from searchlight eyes – their fleece

the gold thread of Ariadne,

knotted in Rhode Island

Black Ships (ocean’s milky matrix

                      *

poured from ineffable Promised Land).

In Siena, insouciant Pax

lounges by sober Justice

in the fresco of Good Government (hand

of Ambrogio).  That thread from beyond

exotic Trebizond

plummets, au fond

to Minotaur’s despair – demented Roy

Dumonde; yet we are gathered up

into another summa

body – solidarità

of Love’s affectionate grail-cup.

It was not price nor money could have

purchased Rhode Island;

Rhode Island was purchased

by love.  So step into the rawhide nave

of Nathan Phillips’ Wakan Tanka –

Spirit beyond each sullen

pond of identification.

Spring winds the rust of iron rancor

into another, more spacious America –

florid green habitat

of Uncle Weaver Rabbit,

Auntie Corn Gatherer (limestone Columbia).

That mud-brown mirror harbors hidden

depths.  & yet she’ll float –

Nile-Isis, river-mote –

your eye-in-hand (nearby, Cahokian).

1.19.19