otherness of the Someone

IRON WHEEL

Her fingers fondled Red Wing clay

on the circling wheel

into Northwoods bowl

or Mexican flowerpot.  Wheels, say,

within wheels... microcosmic canoes,

Arks of the Covenant...

even Charon’s punt,

Henry (we who have passed

over Lethe).  The woman with child

in her apocalyptic

mandorla, chased by Dick

the Drag to the edge of the wild

(up north, near the Boundary Waters,

in the Iron Range, near

Itasca).  Fresco a veneer

across Ravenna beams – Jordan River’s

sleepy patron god.  Sort of like Hobo

witnessing the fire-dove

skim down Cottonwood Cove

& settle on the shepherd kid... just so...

but I just don’t know.

Iconoclasm sets in,

considering we’re human –

liable to make it up as we go.

The otherness of the Someone.

Your friend, your judge

(merciful – but won’t budge,

won’t fudge the facts).  Solomon

petitioned humbly for wisdom,

sensing the dire burden

beyond each king’s ken :

the destiny of Jerusalem

                *

under a blood moon of violent men

& the everyday mayhem

the grinding paroxysm

of atrocious cruelties – shifting pain

to the weak (convenient scapegoat,

ordinary poor).

Even blindfold Synagoga

might remember something critical, something

our mosaic Pantocrator forgot.

A little gray-brown moth

settles on Hobo’s mouth,

like a fingertip.  Hush, seraph.  That

maybe we are Hagia Sophia

with a million eyes.

Solomon was wise

to be humble before the Shekinah.

& Hobo was a mumbling bumbler

more like a river than a man

more like clay than person.

& Thunderbird was a rumbler

in Red Wing, churning the rusted wheel

until it sparked like gold;

helping her to fold

the wet clay of America on steel

braces... evenly rotating... Source

to Delta... Sea-Rose

to Golden Gate... flows

through the arch... Mud-Morse...

7.12.19