TABLE GUEST
The green orbs of the butternut tree
land with a soft clunk
in the August grass. Monk
Hobo absorbs their summer gravity.
Like that statue of Roger stepping through
his doorway on the cliff
into a wavebent skiff
drifting west – like Jonah, into
the gate of Leviathan... an inscrutable
gray brow of cloud, swimming
like dove or seabird... everything
swallowed up into transparent fable –
Columbia, emerging from the ocean mist.
An infant newness in
the soul’s old wilderness,
new-resurrected as a table guest.
The feast was all prepared beforehand.
Lips fuse like the sun’s
corona. That Smiling One’s
your sister-dove, wafting to land
her sea-rose air. Wings overhead
shadow the dark gold
& the blood-red wax – old
regal seal (Day of the Dead).
Beneath twin doors of tin-cut mirror...
out of the cave, volcano,
hurricane... a deep-sea glow
of luminous grail-fish. Draw near.
8.23.17
