2.14.2019

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

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