like a transparent crane-bone flute

UPSTART FLARE

Under Siberian pale-blue ice

tiny frozen spirals form.

Where memories swarm

in whirlpools, counter-clockwise –

Hobo spring of vagrant musing.

Follow me down, she

murmurs, toward the sea –

limpid ocean floor of everything.

The coil of wet clay tightens, slowly.

Welterings of catkin passions

merge beneath an old man’s

glaze (welded to an osier orrery).

It is the Mississippi bottomland

of errant, febrile heart.

Hot kiln, or upstart

flinty flare; centripetal lampstand.

The bare simplicity of San Francesco

floats like a transparent

crane-bone flute –

an air set like a feather in the flow,

a bubble in the world of local trials.

Love the Lord your Wakan Tanka

& your neighbor, Raven Caw-

Caw – this call melts all frozen wiles.

So the clay wheel rotates slowly,

turns inexorably north

south east... & forth

to high Pacific gate – lofting her Liberty.

12.20.19