5.01.2019

golden lanterns of Osiris




BREAD-BOAT

May Day.  The ancient wheel of the earth
lifted on a pole of flowers
by a ring of skipping circlers
wearing flower-circlets.  Distant mirth-

song, childhood in Mendelssohn.
Light primordial.
From before the murky Nile-
punts, beneath waves of Heracleion;

older than those golden lanterns
of Osiris, Ezra
beaming from the deep your
imperial star-bar patterns.

Yet the axial pivot is not a dazzling pillar
but an imperturbable muddy
river, rolled into clay
by palms of your servant, Hathor;

into a ring or a bowl of Providence,
a lowly bread-boat
for carrying each soul-mote
out of its nightmare toward deliverance.

The soul is humbled by redemption
undeserved.  Not light
of brazen copper, but of heart
that passeth understanding, O my son.

Light from before all things, who smiles
into blue depths of rosmarine;
who leaps to Galilean
shore, sings out, & hoists the sails.

5.1.19

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