WIDE SWINGS
In the remote silence of your dream
little Ojibwa cowboy,
every word, every sigh
your lips would bend to the birch beam.
Each syllable would lift up smoothly
like wing or wave, to join
the sarabande procession
flashing tiny stars in their night-cloud sky.
The piety of Aeneas or of Abraham
is tinctured with the same
topaz humility; the fame
of Black Elk flares no different requiem;
& Hobo’s yearning in the Bottomland
& Henry’s striving at the source
obey the same bone-flute discourse –
to verify one sweet-tempered command.
& like a low B-flat trombone bass line
out of some Delta funeral-song
the aura of her Don’t-be-long
with magnetism of her Love, B-mine
goes rippling counter-clockwise, from St.-J
to D.C. piles of masonry
& back to Lake Itasca –
& like mustard monarch or viceroy
lifts tender, glancing & reflective wings
to meet your own, brave
Jessie-Isis – clear sea-wave.
Peace pipes over the Golden Gate, wide swings.
2.25.20
