hove-to before Frisco

LOAD-BEARING

Strong wind in Minneapolis

today, & slate-gray

clouds (stone solidarity

on high).  Big Wind, my father’s

nickname (Indian Guides).  I picked

West Wind.  Some air

in the ceremony there –

pre-Scouts, & pre-Socratic

too.  How a breeze shoulders a mountain

into laurel blossoms;

how one lilac sums

a people in a spell (for funeral train).

The Word-as-Such... the Word is such

for we who have passed over

Lethe.  It is more

than scent of orange – it is a torch

lit by shaping lips, a summons.

One hectoring nation

circles on its chain

thirsting for liberation... the romance

of Spring on earth.  It is only a turtledove

salience, a gray-feathered

stone from Petersburg;

just a load-bearing mule, hove-

to before Frisco.  & you are called to join

the company of saints –

where Livingstone faints

in swamps of cedar (violet, African).

5.23.16

Green confetti for Bunny Rabbi

SOLOMON’S SEAL

Morning sunlight on the riverbank.

Old bridge in the background.

Hubbub of human sound

gone quiet here – some time to think.

The ranks of cottonwoods draw shapes

in four dimensions – homesick

willows by Euphrates,

brooding vaults of shady Chartres,

cloisters clad with marigolds

on orange heights (Monte

Cassino) – where they

summon up papyrus scrolls

like hopeful honeybees, reviving

scribble-cribs in royal reels

of pearly Solomon’s seal –

fern, aloe, acacia... (ever-living

green confetti, for Easter Rabbi).

I pace these precincts with

a vagrant slouch, as if

I’d missed the point.  & then I see

you! – bright invincible

companion – always there

in your cloud-rocking chair

at End of Time, & trouble –

familiar storyteller, Indian Guide

whose hearth blazes from Southern

Cross to blue Vermilion – within

Love’s angled arc (smile-wide).

3.25.16