like a willow bird-basket

DOVE-FLUTE

As Hart’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea

inched toward his New World

or Derry’s Columba (Pearl

Harbor child) anchored his monastery

like a coracle of Ionian gold

in the rêvesonge of an orrery...

So that Prince Hal Harry

leant upon Hobo’s broken shoulder

in order to meld his Camelot tall tale

into a pilot’s river-rumors.

Driftwood-heavy humors,

welded like Jeanne d’Arc in jail

to the high dream of moral freedom –

each bright soul’s laboratory

of liberty (that’s the main story,

from Memphis to Melchizedek-welcome).

O the hollow heart of him Joan lifted!

Like a willow bird-basket

(1132 tons of Itasca

taconite) nailed to Galahad-helmet;

in the clay banks, at the matrix

of four rivers, where

a raven’s bone-flute sauntered

through the air.  Mourning genetrix

for son of Abraham (Jack-in-the-box);

sweet shibboleth of 5-2-9

transmuting sacrificial wine

to shocks of wheat (her arc’s bright locks).

9.21.19

Through human sleep

Christopher Columbus is a divisive historical figure.  The Columbus Day holiday brings out clashing perspectives.  I'm aware of his mixed legacy : symbol of exploration, expanding human horizons, a round globe - and also an image of Western imperialism, cultural hegemony, genocide.  I know today's entry in the Ravenna Diagram series will come across (to most, perhaps) as culturally & stylistically obsolete.  But a poet has a right to be out-of-touch & ridiculous, occasionally.  Sometimes we have to follow the poem's lead.  Now & then a poem unfolds in a metamorphosis, transfigurement.  Symbols molt into something new.  I don't know if that's happened here, though; it's just another Henry sketch.

TREASURE CHEST

A bird hums low through human sleep,

hums softly lullaby,

aubade.  Ohio

bifocals their Burchfields reap.

Columbus is a Jonah still.

The outcast Genoese

casts off, a shifty breeze

of shuttered Inquisition swells

bright spinnaker for Spanish Main.

Indies glimmer in the grain;

Powhatan’s skipping maid

knots scalp & quipu in one braid –

taps down lost gold of tumbleweed

& prairie memory

to one wide planetary

estuary (harvest mead).

The bird floats feathered in her gypsy

treasure chest.  The ship

is Holigost – Time’s keep

(unfathomed yet).  Each Henry V,

grandee Philip will drop the knee

her way; each hungry soul

will stand renewed & whole

upon New Land someday (you’ll see).

Thus in the globe of Jonah’s word

the world comes round, & so

one wing’s carefree proportion

curls each creaking mast homeward.

10.13.15

Statue of Columbus (Elmwood Avenue, Providence)