the public good is an intellectual thing

WHATEVER HAPPENS

                                                      i.m. Sister Pat DeMoully

Hobo, that disintegrating Henry

sank into Mississippi

bottomland.  Big Muddy.

Like Lucius with his wayward donkey

rescued (finally) by Isis-Psyche.

The mule wanders Badlands.

Civic twilight (all hands

off deck).  Some refusenik-refugee.

Henry recalls the Brown & Sharpe

machinery complex

where young Rex

mingled with VISTA volunteers, harp

tuned to Dionysian thunder drum.

Green genius JFK

chanted (head all bloody)

Camelot concept.  Whole sum

of common good (an intellectual thing)

for young collegians,

braving their joy-dance

from campus triangle to iron ring;

the commonwealth is worth defending

whatever happens to me

(beam, solidarity).

Like Sister Pat in Jonestown, bending

from Minneapolis to Mississippi’s

veritable excess poverty.

To be there, every day...

a live-oak Galahad, touching the keys.

1.22.19