surfing Delta gumbo

sketch by Benjamin Latrobe, architect

LIGHT DOWRY

On this day, 200 years ago

Benjamin Latrobe won

the municipal commission

for the bell tower in New O. –

St. Louis Cathedral, surfing delta

gumbo (French-Indian-

Spanish-Anglo-American)

on canoe-back of turtle-flotilla.

Oak Apple Day, Restoration Day,

Rhode Island Statehood Day

& many another day

no doubt (not far from Whitsunday).

In the well of the king, of the king who must die

(before time began?) shone

a shade of green pine

grieving... like an old Irish eye.

Luminous melancholy, just a shade

from joy – from the well

of well-being, when all

shall be well (amid all things well-made).

When frost of fright-scorn, the old

icehouse of sacred king

slides into melt... & everything

shines in right splendor of childhood;

when young ones in Rhode Island

or New Orleans lift themselves

to the light dowry of El

Shaddai – her pact of love and understand.

5.29.19

in cedar spring

SMALL STONE

Hobo sauntering by the mother-river

with a pebble in his shoe

small stone, toe-to-toe

just for you, forever & ever.

It’s the mystery of history, he says

the authority of the source

headwaters, of course

Veritas caput.  & so his voice

goes modulated with the flow from there

as the sound wave of a whale

goes through a wave, to hell

& back – using echolocation (your

submarine eye, Osiris-sailor).

As the cathedral-builder

put her name in the floor

at the center of the maze, Jair –

that’s where you’ll find her grey-

winged agate (like minnow

in Rio del Espiritu Santo)

making the sign of a spiral J;

like a whisper out of the heart of silence

or out of Ocean River

circling round you forever

with those winking lights, intelligence

of love... because what was human & personal

is as close as your shadow

& adores creation – El Shaddai

in cedar spring (simple, loving, powerful)

5.18.19

El Shade-Eye

UNBROKEN SMILE

If I murmur a little in your direction,

little almond tree, lessel

mandel baum, it’s only

because you’re a little evergreen

in my heart – still leaving, leaving

from the great ash mast

where you still last, & last...

as if lashed to a breathing & grieving

breeze.  Maxims, beatitudes

sing through its rigging

(cicada-susurrus, pinging

from Maximus, Boethius)...

its compass just a simple carpenter’s

level’s bubble-eye –

a kayak reciprocity-

needle, trained on bent meteor’s

immaculate arc (unbroken smile

from sky to Ojibwa midway

way).  Immense gravity

waves emanate from a small gray pebble,

tossed off the stern like a Jonah-

pigeon, never to return –

Raven or Betyl-stone

(anchor sunk to seabed zone).

A pyramid of limestone glyphs

guards fair mum-tomb;

your skipper’s Sophie-doom

from living lips... (forever flips).

2.17.16

& 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