TURTLE-SHELL
Henry wakes from an old man’s nap
with a child’s sense of space
& time. Heart’s relentlessness.
Here be the river; here the wide gap
between whispering grassland, distant sky.
Epiphany. Three Wise Men
camel out from high Tehran
to find one homeless king, in a spare pig sty.
Tonight the belligerent intelligence of war
sent guided Minotaurs
heat-seeking vengeance. Stars
were collateral damage (kids no more).
The ragged tent-flap & the drafty stall
are Henry’s flimsy turtle-shell.
His mind & heart a broken spell –
a wasteland shack, no longer fit for Grail
or Calabrian hermit-monk, or Parsifal.
Only bring me the gift, Melchior
of your toy myrrh-nef – your
river-sense, emerald, mercurial;
like a 4-leaf clover made of almonds
interlaced... like 4 canoes
bent to the whirlpool’s
mandala (Itasca spiral of palm fronds).
This Providence of tight-coiled J
anchors the Pacific Ocean.
Knots its rose-clay revolution
to a bottled ship – ensign of Milky Way.
1.7.20
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