DEEP SPRING
for Martin Luther King
Late April snow. A blinding white
50 years after Lorraine
Motel. Memphis, again.
River-Land, seeking an Ocean State.
Rich port-of-call – the 51st, maybe?
Lost Black Sea pebble,
gray whale in trouble
(silent in the silence). Who is she?
Grace filters into Providence
through stubborn darkness.
Rose Island light – less
diamond than dawn translucence –
only a signal for a wayward eye.
A Chartres chart, or maze
from Notre Dame (haze
mollifies her frozen sky).
The sleepwalkers smolder through smoke-
machines. Father & son,
their colder war passed on –
unfriendly history (life’s but a joke).
Still roses bloom, in Galilee –
galactic Okean
become a local pond;
folksinging Nazir calling me
to dance, & calling you as well.
Deep spring’s Unknowability
leaps into charity –
a little Noah-boat skims out of hell.
4.4.18
