part of the main

HEARTH-FIRE

I stepped outside of the quarantine

early this morning (one quiet

crystalline April moment).

A mourning dove, sequestered in a pine

nearby, was practicing, solo (adagio

con molto sentimento d’affetto).

& therefore do not send to know

for whom the bell tolls – Adios, amigo.

We don’t hear them much now, here

as once in Rhode Island.

& it’s hard to comprehend

how time-space telescopes into the mirror

(O my clay-rimmed, worm-riddled heart

& soul)… yet her melancholy

plaint echoes, in me

the solitude that ripens all my art.

We do not belong just to ourselves.

We are part of the main.

I am a half-hitch in a seine

flung from an ark, whose kelson delves

across the Black Sea of the universe.

Borne by embattled star-murmurs,

this pressure on the king spurs

martyrs to out-run the royal curse –

so Socrates & Tommy More, Jesus

absolve the men who killed them;

so their normative love-law anthem

sighs out warm fire into cold sacrifice.

4.19.20

the continuum of life (i.m. Margaret Treuer)

MORNING STAR

                             i.m. Margaret Seelye Treuer

There is the fabric of the poem & there is

the continuum of life

as with Ojibwe mother & wife

& federal magistrate Margaret Treuer, otherwise

Giiwedinookwe (North Wind Woman) –

first American Indian

female judge in the country

(requiescat in pace, strong dancing one).

& I can’t always mesh the two threads

right – in poem, & with life

with my dull carving knife

rough-shaping sets of Minny-figureheads

for meanings I can’t quite project.

& in a one-room cabin she

grew up, ambitious to be

of service from the start – & heck,

she married a refugee from Nazi Germany

– Scattergood while you can

laboring man, & chairwoman

in labor.  Adamant to bring out of many

threads, & ivory husks of sister birch

one floatable resilient bark

or local replica of Ark…

wild rising, riding on waters of Ur-church

or paddling Churnagogue… to lift

the mournful tapestry

from scorn & travesty

to something like the glowing starry gift

                   *

it was meant to be, in the beginning

& she loved her Native ways

served as mentor & guide

teaching her children how to rice & sing

& hunt, tap maple, living off the land.

I was searching for a figure

like Pocahontas, Morning Star

stepping up to dance out of Gravesend

someone like starry Virgo or Corn Mother

to represent (in my rough-

sketchy way) just enough

for my own District of Columbia (another,

older coulombe, a deeper-down coo-coo). 

& as le printemps approaches

& spring tiptoes on lady’s

slippers through the forest, & you

sense the great symphony slowly expand

& breathe, toward end of May

a chord of Restoration Day

sounds in my heart & over the land –

when a glossolalia of babbling Pentecost

races glittering across

the coppery brook, & as

we rise in spirit toward that almost

ineffable perfection of the Everlasting

Thunder-life… we sing

of grace & thanks-giving;

our maypole wisdom-song we bring.

3.21.20

grain in the hold in the Boundary Waters

Mary (Elvira) Ravlin Gould, Jan. 2020

BRIGHT ANCHOR

I was wheeling my mother Mary around

the old people’s home yesterday.

We came upon the Ash Wednesday

service, by chance, & rolled on in.

The genial priest lifted up the Book

& prayed for us all

& traced a cross of charcoal

on our brows (despite my mother’s look

of wary puzzlement).  & we rolled on.

Her father was an engineer.

Master of grain elevator

& sewage plant, he built his own

brick house along the Mississippi

back in 1929, or so –

Barnett & Record Co.

John H. Ravlin (everlastingly).

Granddad, your fathers came from Dublin

whirled by coracle & shamrock

to Vermont.  By hard knock

grace & cornucopia, they ventured in

to the interior.  You heard violins

of Verdi… Elvira

(some serene Barber adagio)

& in great lofty mountainous grain bins

of full, deep faith, one mustard seed

of your stern secret mother

glints – compassionate anchor

for Milky Way (ark’s cornerstone, indeed).

2.27.20

John H. Ravlin in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (1940s)

near the pin of the spoke

ALMOND BOAT

Love & harmony are the spring of song

murmured the little holm oak

near the pin of the spoke

& sanction of same, she sapped along;

so I task you, febrile Henry Hobo,

tiny A-grade acorn, flow.

So down to Gulf of Mexico

adrifted on the current, shady Penny-O

& me.  Time was an arc of aquamarine,

with cloud-ships for dreaming;

transumptive Ocean, circuiting

the galaxies, checkmating history (unseen,

almost).  Our boat was an ovoid ovum

chicken-coop (Rhode Island

Red) ruddered by hand –

she wove you liberty & welcome

for your immersive infancy of joy –

sails belling with sweet air

of solidarity & friendly care,

infinity of each one in our eye.

& Penny dreamt alongside, inside me

in the same language, dark

& light – Lady of the Ark

closer than whisper, vaster than sea.

Like Beatrice or Eurydice or Mary,

she’s Iris in her almond boat –

shimmering beyond this moat

gripped by the Minotaur, to set us free.

2.7.20

a woman in a hammock

DROWSY SONG

The earth waits, like the source of the Nile

on the periphery of the capital.

Behind its porphyry wall

princes perform their tragedy of control.

The earth sleeps, like a woman in a hammock

dreaming of a happy home.

Crowds gathered in the New Rome

to print their great seal on a marble rock.

The Minotaur strode back and forth

sleepless as a pumpkin seed –

his labyrinth a putrid gourd

of fireworks orange (Julius the 4th).

He fought the dragons in his nightmare sea;

he clutched the basket of his swollen

head; his world was stolen

from a woman’s arms – bound to tyranny.

Hobo droned his drowsy song in unison.

The earth still turned for him.

Saturn & Venus, in their stream

of light, grew calm.  Night was for everyone.

The enormous clay wheel spun her sarabande.

The great ship shrank into the distance.

A tiny needle in its compass dance –

the apple of the capital (in Hobo’s hand).

Her shadow was a cloud cast on the evening sky,

a handful of benevolence.

A mystery of loving Providence

instilled in hearts by art, with eyes from Aye.

1.18.20

an ocean swell

ACORN-RIM

This is that ancient harvest night.

Rhode Island harvesting

the sea.  A Newport wedding

(Jacqueline & Jack) at rocky height

(of Sachuest). & as the whale

harvesting the sea as well

is no less an ocean swell,

& Jonah is his pearl – still hale

& whole, alive from deeps of hell –

so Henry might rise again

from his own carapace of sin

(that shimmery-mirror Minotaur-spell).

Hobo-Falstaff lurks beneath a branch

of raven-wood (Cautantowwit,

Caws-too-much-wit).  Stone-set

into the Seeker’s providential avalanche –

one violet for the junk-jewelry state.

The salt air clears his head.

One Spirit wakens all the dead,

he chants – one Dream outshining potentate

& pyramid.  He nurses Henry back to health

like Whitman with his milky muse;

Abe & martyr Martin fuse

into the circle of their commonwealth –

a coracle or ark of Liberty

circumferencing azure shores,

whose acorn-rim Henry restores

to dappled shade (bright almond eye).

11.1.19

like a lost Osiris

photo by Aaron Siskind (Cuzco)

WAVY LIPS

On the coldest night in a generation

on a bridge in Minneapolis

one delicate snowflake melts

into her crevices of Inca stone.

Berryman, like a lost Osiris

wavers on the railing...

& maidens will be wailing

in Ramah, because she is

no more.  A forgotten Muse

of Memory – figure

of a little almond tree –

stays hidden (somewhere in D.C.).

I gather the limbs of Osiris

whispers Isis (under

her obelisk of wonder

blundering toward Sirius).

She remains behind her veil

out there in West Branch,

like a soft eyelash

encircling the ark of Israel –

like the cow-eyed prow of Argo

or sea-tossed glance

of Magdalen-experience;

the wavy lips of the vessel flow

into a primavera Ocean State...

your dream-song Jonah

breathing – hallelujah! –

from polar ice to coracle checkmate.

1.27.19

digging in the dirty green

AYE-AYE

The dirty green of the dollar bill.

Gardener George, earwigged

on one side (with a big

little Mona Lisa smile).

The eye over the pyramid (annuit

coeptis) on the other.

Levitating, mother!

Mammon, touching his limit –

a gilded pharaoh, forced to step

sideways (into the river-

sand).  Busy beaver

out of Illinois might be princeps

round here (nobody knows

til all the votes are counted).

We are all the Lord’s anointed

Preacher-Judge (siege perilous)

leers in the face of b-flat storm –

Cordelia, ascend

your throne, bend

everyone to teeming agape (love’s form).

The government shall be upon

his shoulder (right to left)

until the desolate bereft

& greedy soul relents – a human

Imogen emerges, lowly

& victorious.

Dancing the periplus

of Arg-Noah (144, aye-aye).

12.12.17

alongside the canoe

SHIP’S EYE

John Slocum fell into a swoon

in the sea-tinged woods

by Puget Sound; his words

of hope shook many Shaker men

out of their sins.  Sparks fly far

from cedar blaze – the sea

booms in a ship’s eye

lashed by yardarm to the polestar.

It’s not the size of the cosmos

but the color of the scales,

gilded when dawn pales

rippling on ice-floes

across the horizon, back to Ocean –

over hide rooftops

sun-parched corn crops

in the jungle (Squaxin, Galilean).

When Davy the Song Prince pranced

alongside the canoe

Maggie saw what she knew

was hers, & grew embarrassed –

yet her almond eye looks to the sea

& the song endures.  A stone

fell from turtle-grey heaven –

the flare of a meteor, a mystery;

an infinite cloud-bank shaped like wing

a feather of ring-dove

signifying love

left brush-marks down by Slocum Spring.

9.26.16

down a river to the Keys

LIGHT RHYMES

End of summer on the river path.

Light almost plaintive

through cottonwood leaves,

a frieze of tall pillars.  A froth

of rambling wildflowers, tender lavender

nameless to me – it’s not

rhodora, in this woodlot

astride mud-coppery earth-bender...

So Hobo goes mumbling along.

A road of melancholy

adoration (holy

fool, remembering a door, a song-

agate)... rowing, rowing down

a river to the Keys.

Angling through trees,

light rhymes with breeze (a wind-sown

octave); a fleet bird whistles

through hearkening cedars.

Her labyrinth of tears

might be a simple maze of thistles –

a hobo circus of circumference

around the dense mast

of a coracle.  Its ballast

is adhesive mutuality – love-sense

smiling through some kid’s affection

for a friend... Mendelssohn

in harmony, one

ark out of many waters (milky lesson).

9.19.16

& the ship sails on

CAUTANTOWWIT

The sweet old pussy willow’s gone

that once o’ershadowed Pushkin’s

backyard grave (great Russian

cat).  Leaves not a leaf behind –

only an empty space (alas, 

alack) anchors a magic

carpet o’ masticated

stump.  So we hung up our lyres

on the bow of that stubby caravel,

Acacia – stuffed to the gills

with incoherent motorings,

burbling Barranca Straits – with Mal

& Papa consulting the cabinet

non-stop... coat, liquor...

What have I left her,

now, here?  These were all spirits,

veering toward Prince Eddy’s Island.

Wracking my brains... hollow

ravine in the pupil, valley

so low... black hole of Depression

Inlet.  Perdita, somewhere in

the safety net, under

the ark at Porta Aurea –

dear lightsome daughter!  Ravlin,

unraveled so.  Now rainbows flash

Medusa-shells, O

Mountainous Sad Shadowship –

to wit, to woo... (by Narragansett ash).

9.25.15

where was the willow once

Pushkin

From the days of John...

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force. Pondering this passage from the Gospels (here, Matthew 11:12). Jesus is eulogizing John.

"From the days of John until now..." I understand this as making a distinction between two different time-periods, one being under the spiritual "authority" of John & all the prophets (since "John is Elijah who is to come"), and the other under the authority of the Son of Man (Jesus). Two distinct eras of the spirit of God. Now = where the person of Jesus is manifest.

"... & men of violence take it by force." This is a deep & resonant saying. Interpreted & misinterpreted again & again....

How do I read it today? Well, have been reading a fascinating old book (1940s) by Julian Morgenstern, The ark, the ephod and the "tent of meeting". Studying & speculating on the affinities between the ark, the Temple, and very ancient tribal war-gods and their symbols - their temples, their cult objects. The god of the clan & the tribe was above all a divine defender of the tribe : through prayer & supplication & magic & divination, the tribal priest-leader would call upon the god in the ark (or tent, or temple) to come to their aid in battle.

In other words, men projected their sense of actuality, of truth, of fate, onto their own symbol of divine authority & sanction. And these religious projections would in turn be ratified and codified by force, by shamanistic magic. Man's own alienated powers were projected onto their shared symbolic totems.

I don't see this as pure false consciousness & mystification : I see it as archaic humanity's efforts to grasp and control a bewildering and violent & chaotic & dangerous world. At the same time, I think it must be recognized as also a reflection of that violence - it is suffused with force. & I identify this dimension in part with what Jesus is pointing toward in this passage.

We are talking about very basic background or foundations of human civilization, I guess. And there are no hard & fast distinctions or divides - it's more like a moral/ethical continuum. What I mean is there is a gradual change from conceiving the divine solely in terms of power, force & violent control, and conceiving the divine in terms of mercy, mutual understanding, reason, compassion, kindness... peacemaking. & we can see this change emerging in the Decalogue (the 10 Commandments). Necessity is the mother of invention.... & when the Hebrews emerged from servitude in Egypt, it was the legal-political wisdom of Moses which adapted ancient forms of tribal worship, cult & divination toward the beginnings of a notion of the divine as universal moral law.

So when Jesus speaks of "from the days of John", and the "kingdom of God" formerly coming with violence, he is pointing, it seems to me, toward a basic, fundamental re-orientation : a recognition that in God there is no sanction for force & violence : that force & violence and arbitrary rule actually have nothing to do with those ethical strata & dimensions of life which are part of the "kingdom" (love, mercy, kindness, compassion, justice, peace, happiness, hope, joy...). "Unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God."

This dimension I see as the "underside" of authoritative religion... the Mary-Magdalen-at-the-Sepulchre side... the "poetry" side... & there are a lot of these themes running through my scribblings...

OK, one more (God, I could post the whole damn poem.)

 17


  
 I built a way-too-delicate
 ship-in-a-bottle and threw it
 into the sea.  Was it Lucky
 or Sophie – or only

  
 Titanic ox taught to float
 too soon toward no one?
 A wheel was borne
 down to the delta (a

  
 paddle-wheeler, lazy
 catamaroon) into New
 Orleans, like an ark of J
 d'Esprit or some Degas

  
 jetty-gazetteer-in-brick
 Isaac molded for gargoyle
 atop Notre Dame.  Soil-
 heavy, a thrown-back

  
 blue-gill forehead-
 figured she-Marie or
 Rust & Rosie O'Green
 maybe – a Marian, sad-

  
 happy-again at the
 cap-tall pen-arcadia
 turkey-shoot.  A florid,
 a rapt – windjimmirror.

  
 Some medieval mother
 wounded by arrows.  Your
 forged seventh to the fourth is
 one loft-angle-barn green anchor.


     
                             6.9.99

Zukofsky (via Josh) & "objectification" - aesthetic principle of rest, finish, completion, fulness, equilibrium, self-sufficiency (beauty/pleasure), being related to utopia, Paradise, Shabbat (sabbath).

A very old notion - much speculated upon by Byzantine theologians (Hexaemera - meditations & sermons on the 6 "days" of Creation).

Poetry's special relation to the word as good-in-itself.

Comes out in Forth of July via imagery of the ark, the covenant, Jonah ("dove"-prophet-spirit), Jerusalem, Jubilee, time-travel.

I sought "finish" & objectification in my own way. The patterns of numbers, seasons, festival days - the "occasional poem" elements. (5.28) The formal crystallization of the 3-vols. + Coda. The numerical extensions of the abba quatrain; numerology. The symmetry of the 3 vols (over 900 pp.) centered on a single 7-line poem (#28) at center of Grassblade Light, which itself in turn pivots on a single line. Then the thematic rhymes, the Russian puns, the "delta" element, the Orpheus-Bluejay-Ojibwa layers. . . the central puns (Julius, Juliet, July, Jewel-eye, Jubilee. . .)

Plus a lot of great Minnesota stuff!!!!!!!!!! whoopie!!! loon calls!!!!!!! Put up yer dukes, Zuks!!!

Why poetry? I mean, why do we do this?

We take aesthetic pleasure in words, what language does?

That, and something else. With language we acknowledge, define, order, shape what we experience. This is a techne intimately fused with that which it represents. With poetic speech we "surround ourselves with domestic utensils, the warmth of the hearth" (Mandelstam's description of the poetics of Acmeism - "domestic hellenism". He was doing this in deliberate contrast to the more otherworldly & abstract qualities of Russian Symbolism).

The equilibrium of artifice - craft, techne - and nature is at the root of civilization.

So perhaps we can recognize a certain solemn (&/or playful) objectivity, disinterestedness, at work in poetry - a reflection or emanation of the poet's serious effort to follow & express truth - the poet's equivalent of the philosopher's or scientist's activity.

The image of "the city" in art (as I said, I'm reading about medieval Siena), representing an ideal of equilibrium between know-how & nature, individual & community. (And hidden within every image of the city is that of a garden.)

The word bears the techne of a global equilibrium (Mandelstam also foresaw this). When he talked about the poem as "like unto an Egyptian bark of the dead, carrying everything necessary for life" - he was talking about the word-itself as a sort of Noah's ark.

The curious focus in the American long poem on the local, the city. The unavoidable and only shared "here & now" where any real equilibrium (political, cultural, natural) becomes possible.

WHEN THE ARK TOUCHED DOWN


 
 
In every town, in every land and tongue
the priests and teachers purify the faith,
instruct the folk, distinguish right from wrong,
observe the ancient rites, deflect God’s wrath,
urge everyone along the well-loved path:
but there was no such pattern of tradition
when the Ark touched down under the stars of Babylon.

 
The sons of Noah often disagree
and quibble over points of subtlety:
Shem, Ham, and Japheth share a history
of tangled speech, disputed property,
and death-by-Cain in field or dusty alley:
but there was no such habit of destruction
when the Ark touched down under the stars of Babylon.

 
The Lord, the Pure, the Power, the Supreme,
the Imageless, the One, the Sacred Dream,
the Holiness Who cleanses to redeem,
Existent God, beyond our fleeting sham:
we shape your profile, still beseech you, Come!
For only a perfect maze managed perfection
when the Ark touched down under the stars of Babylon.

(... & inevitably, when I look back at my own development in poetry over 30 years, I witness the acting-out of these principles: from early attraction to & imitation of the NY School poets, to absorption (to the point of psychological breakdown) with Shakespeare's sonnets, to complete immersion in the language of the Bible, to a return to poetry-making through the unpredictable influence of Mandelstam (leading, after a long time, to the "literary encounter" with Elena Shvarts), to the long-drawn-out exploration of modernist poetry & the long poem, to the recurrent return to Mandelstam as to a first principle of inspiration. Glazov-Corrigan [p. 146]:

"We can now begin to see why Mandelshtam speaks about Dante's writing as a 'bird's mating call', a fife. 'The fife is nearly always sent forth to scout ahead.' Dante's poetry does not transmit a message: it awakens, stretches out, and develops a response. It is a generative principle of literature.... the poem awakens into writing a generation of writers to come. It precontains, as it were, its subsequent history: 'The miracle-ship left the shipyard with barnacles adhering to its hull.'")

Cosmipoetics. From an article in Tuesday's NY Times science section:

As they try to figure out how this strange behavior could be happening to 
the universe today, astronomers say the ultimate prize from all the new observing
projects could be as simple as a single number.
      That number, known as w, is the ratio between the pressure and density of
dark energy. . .

You could say that Stubborn Grew (or at least Bluejay's presence in) is about the pressure and density of dark energy. Here's Bluejay, intimating to unknowing Henry what he's about:

Hey!  C'mon Bluejay!  Live ain't over yet!  Let's go -
up to the Terrace!  There's old Roger himself, up there!
Bluejay turned SE to see.  Yeah, I see the ol bear.
He got up and shook himself - blood to flow

 
into his phosphoric, porous feet and hands -
and said:  you know what you doin, Henry m'man?
You know you zigshaggin?  Raven an zigshaggin
a sweetblack rizebury W, man - donch U?  Unnerstan?

 
A what?  Sho.

& then the letter "W" takes on a multivalent quality in many sections of the poem : a shorthand for Whitman or William Blackstone, a reflection of "M" (both Mandelstam & Dante's stellar icon for Justice in the Paradiso), & other things. Here's something toward the end of Forth of July as a whole:

         1


  
         We are coming to the end of Henry
 Navigator's long voyage, Elena –
 circling around an elephant ear (Abul
 Abaz, or Barnum's Jumbo) – see

  
         how everything grows simpler,
 more harsh, more true.  Still
 the well is always there (and will
 be) – like the man standing here

  
         beside it in the dark courtyard
 (strange blooming out-of-season
 almond branch).  A stone,
 a star, a well.  A cup of water

  
         from a rainbarrel (or Tartar
 wine).  A circling dragon-boat
 or scrap of origami writ
 folded to float so lightly... there.

  
         You fold Andromeda into a W,
 a mountain range back into M.
 You cup them in your palm
 to make a diamond, or double-

  
         diamond – cat's eyes, Pushkinian.
 Delicate Blue Morpho wings
 woven with microscopic strings
 of quipu thread (gentian-

  
         gentle, violet, and red).  A knit
 crossroad, then – red, white –
 streams into Cassiopeia's
 mother-night (at last).

      
                               5.22.2000

(Cassiopeia being a constellation in the form of a "W", and linked mythologically with Ethiopia - another thread in the poem - source of Nile, "dark energy", Ark of Covenant legends, etc.).