beamed into a barn corner

LEVEL PLAIN

When all the structures are dismantled,

the fabulous bright makings

woven by spider-kings

undone, what remains untold?

In Mendelssohn, I handed a dandelion

through the wooden fence

to golden Heidi, once –

old flame of infancy, first Valentine.

Her mop of hair colored like wheat

framing chaste happiness –

Gumilev’s compass,

calm charity for all (transparent,

sweet).  The shadow of the martyrs

like myrtle in the graveyard

darkens, green.  The bard

of America recalls through tears

the gentle captains taken from us

like matryoshka dolls –

god-like mortals

molting in dilapidated silos

like shimmering snowfields of wheat-

crystals.  So their presence

in aromatic silence

weights like ballast of a sea-casket

each holiday – all history

compacted in the oval

trace of one primeval

prophet’s kiss.  O mystery

                *

of your mandorla – crumbling wall!

Like Jonah from the sea

come whispering to me –

dark almond, ministering honey-gall!

Your tiny grain of wheat must die

in the heart of Everywoman,

Everyman... becoming stone;

stone reddened in Rhode Island eye

not purchased by price nor money

but only by love.

So that Liberty-dove

became Columbia, for buried Henry –

Astraea beamed into a barn corner

& Virgo spread her sheaf

of compassionate relief

in a sparkling surf of harvest air.

So your soaring icon in a mandala

hovers over Ravenna;

so Dante’s antenna

transmits in spectral panorama

the rainbow’s interlocking rings

framing that child-king

set upon humbling

all earthly dominion – til everything’s

remolded to a level plain

or playing-field; clay

children romp all day

within your carpentry’s domain.

2.14.19