the American dreamwork

NAVE RESTORATION

The American dreamwork seems to grow

of itself, like a vagrant

acorn’s buried descendant

branches roots into veins of air, so –

leaving yourself behind, then

as in a park playground

at dusk, all around

echoing shouts of kids having fun

within the green lamps of those trees

& the circle of daydreaming

grownups, their evening

rest emerging at last – the iron wheeze

of the swing-set beginning to mesmerize

with its creaky metronome –

& you have a premonition of home,

like a matryoshka doll of paradise

or a houseboat nested in a boathouse.

American as they don’t get?

Anonymous as a planet

without name, yet – Isis, Osiris...

A figure stands at the dream door.

They put the body there?

Now it’s not anywhere.

He gone, she gone (to tell them more).

Hobo Ulysses glides toward New Orleans,

St.-Jeanne of the Delta,

Jonah.  Coracle fella,

acorn Cap.  Nave restoration’s what it means.

5.17.19