Cloud & Catalpa, Minneapolis (Martin Johnson Heade, 2019)
GRASS CLOVERLEAF
Everything grew simpler in that high room
overlooking Jerusalem
when he added up the sum
& gave us his Thanksgiving poem.
The apostolic laying on of hands
was just an afterthought
Mary Magdalen taught
to keep the Presence each one understands.
The knot held. The silverweb
floresced, in centaur arrow-
shots – from Antioch to
Thebes, up to remotest Gad-Gab
(Ethiopia). Axled on coffin
of coffins. Buried deep
as Noah’s ark. Sleep,
King of Kings (like everything human).
This gemstone of the Southern Cross
shines like diamond
out of emerald
almond – mossy quaternion, grass
cloverleaf (in shape of heart).
That little tree will root
where all the branches start,
where all the rivers roll (sky-girt
perpendicular – little Everytwig
leaning against current)
– unto that iron agent
sluicing the Delta to a brazen fig
*
shriveled, dry (as is the way with figs).
Yet Wisdom is justified
in all her children. Hide
now, O Man – Ouragan digs
into clay. Rotating so solemnly,
she shakes the bone-limbs
from their joints, skims
lightly over coastal property
– only to uproot, destroy. Bideth
nor roof nor door, Tornado!
Like the Iron Age you know
twisted to shattering shadow... Lilith-
Crocodile, climbing from Delta
to muddy matrix of
St. Louis. Scorned Love
twisted into dust-mandala –
substantial b-flat of the galaxies
stilled, played in reverse.
The little tree of Ursus
Minor – little star, catalpa’s
iris-blooms – starts wheeling
counter-clockwise. Clover
culminates your
integral almond-canoe. Sing,
Muse, Oblomov-grail of prairie earth!
The great wheel turns.
Jonah’s corn-maze yearns
Restoration... (Miriam’s rebirth).
6.28.19
