sketchy star-map

GREEN PYRAMID

The idea of Janus.  Osip is born;

war saw.  The tiny hexagons,

whose bite is bitterness

& valediction, zigzag down

here, in our Cerealian Capital

(Pillsbury, General Mills).

Grandpa, in Saskatchewan

wills grain elevators toward the pole.

Above these winter clouds, invisible

Venus the flower-star

describes tobacco-petal arcs –

Gravesend’s Dark Lady – indelible

cartwheeling Corn Maiden – springing

& sovereign rite of way;

dewy washerwoman, our MVP

lifting the horizon over D.C. (washing

everything).  Verily... except a corn of wheat

fall into the ground & die...

Over the green pyramid, an eye;

red rose for Memorial Day (complete

now, finished).  Elvira, out of Ravlin

opera, spins toward blue clay

herself.  We go that way

with snowflakes, with January’s frozen

squeaky violin... we go together.

At our reed-muddy center

she alights on the perimeter –

Adonai cornucopia, our milky tether.

1.15.20

from David Ovason, The Secret Architecture of the Nation's Capital, p.190