ALMOND ARGO
Old Hobo-&-Henry, down by Big Muddy.
Hobo lounges in cottonwood shade.
Twirls a bright curving blade
of tiger-lily, so orange & black, idly
between finger & thumb. Henry
thought of mossy Giuliana
walking away from her pottery
shop, entering the gloom of Sant’Apollinari –
high frieze of majestic virgin martyrs
carrying their crowns.
The photo from Ballets Russes,
Paris, 1913 – spring maids, en fleurs...
& the black dot of Juliet in the distance
crossing the tensile spine
of orange tiger-dragon
one last time (beneath frost-cobalt silence).
Strange oak, epileptic, near the shore.
Bent like a lyre before
a cluster of cottonwoods – your
humble servant, it seems. Kingly no more.
Hobo eyed it. Washing their leaves
with hers, maybe, he said.
Like San Francesco & his bride,
his sister, Povertà. Humility cleaves
to the pivot of this world, the matrix –
to the crossroad, to the tree
of life. I look into you, Henri –
to your salty heart. I read the asterisk
*
you scribble for a star, approximately –
I scan the fresco-sketch
you offer for a spirit-potlatch
replica of New World Galilee. It’s funny.
Earth is in its birth-pang death-throes,
Hobo. Hope is hard to find.
Yet... the kingdom’s in your mind.
Your heart, my friend. The Shadow knows.
& you were right to shape the Southern Cross
surrounded by Sydney fig trees
into a diamond-figure Paradise –
to stem four rivers from St. Louis
like emerald casket for the Eucharist;
for Micòl in her black canoe
& MLK in Memphis too
sustain that central martyrdom of Mars
just as Dante foresaw, in his basilica –
where little sylvan J
circumferences her almond tree
delightfully... & the grail of tears (Ephphatha)
opens broken hearts across the globe
to each one’s almond Argo
Isis-eyed Hagia Sophia...
see, Henry Church? & like a strobe
light suddenly unfolded, Henry felt
what Osip felt – accompanied
the rapture of the universe (sighed
with bold Marian... watched iron melt).
8.8.19
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