on the North Shore of the North Star state

SOFT KISS

Not far from Berryman’s Witch’s Hat

in Prospect Park, off Arthur Ave

Henry beholds spring showers lave

his plague-burnt Vale of Josaphat

(in Minneapolis).  It is a hard Lent

& shrunken plain to see –

April trundling mournfully

to graveyards.  Brash head bent,

hobo Henry Hal recounts his crimes

(near Purgatory Chasm,

in Newport).  Hopes a chrism

helps redeem his own end times

along Humility Way – the icy treason

of a lodestone heart.

His mother’s art

pierces also, beyond reason –

those 4 unsoldered quarters of clay tile

where Henry & Francesca swim

below a swirling rim

of Gooseberry Falls (old Ravlin file)

in the blithe innocence of marriage

unbetrayed… unmade,

not yet.  Like Longfellow glade,

or negative of Dante’s personal stage

(Circle of Lust) the two of us

will splash, forever smiling

in that riverine, beguiling

clay lost Paradise of faithfulness

                   *

& O the hubris of Superior Prince Hal!

To think he’d play the alpha male

to Berryman, beyond the pale –

snow-bent J. Beerust, in his dream-corral!

My clay ticks slowly on its glitter-wheel

toward kiln of Judgement Day.

But you might take another way,

Kidron – follow the foamy V of keel

into that Ocean River of the galaxies;

gaze up into the Royal Arch

where smile-canoe arcs

over candescent happiness... frees

hearts & souls into the wholeness

they were meant to seize!

That Charity of charities,

that source of every brimming goodness...

the grace of Miriam-consent (to give)...

true North Star of the Sea!

Friend Berryman would be

beside me here, in this infinitive

to live – an evergreen, emerald

eternity of growth –

an exponential for a moth

(or butterfly) to find – New World

born from the Old, as wings from chrysalis

when Spirit strokes like Thunder

through clay rings… & under

your rose aye of Providence (soft kiss).

3.25.20