she is a mason too

FAMILIAR EYE

When the farmwoman goes out to sow

a scattering of cornseed

or fleurette africaine (dark weed

flung wide), she is a mason, too –

planting a cornerstone at dawn

to the northeast (between

the subtle nightshade of illusion

& nuanced elaborations of the sun).

Hope being the common denominator

of all our troubled labor

buried out there, somewhere.

Does language know?  Prickly pear,

prickly pear... where the shadow falls

across an exact location.

33 light-years... (someone

WW knew – at Kitty Hawk?).  Tiny candles

flicker in the hot wind from the crypt.

Presently details of the little

room emerge.  Her title

to the seasoned sailor, found amidships

after the ashes scattered like black raven-

doves into infinity –

where Mr. Sunborn’s akme

of knowledge curled its crown toward heaven.

This the mandala the builders left me.

Jenny with her Book of J – my

golden lamb of Ghent... familiar eye

peeled back, unvarnished (dyeing history).

1.30.20