RIVER-TOY
On Holy Saturday, the Great Sabbath
when Jesus murmured, It is finished
& in his grave (like Jonah’s fish)
rested… as in an Ocean River bath…
When 12-yr-old Henry grandly admired
his glue-stiff model (Old Ironsides)
alight with joy, & tired pride…
– as just now Sophie dashed across the yard
to him, 50 years later – to display
the paper flower boat (sky-
blue, & Clizia-giallo) she
runs off to let fly, down the Mississippi…
her tender river-toy… her revery, her rest.
& while Henry gyred – wacky
as Coney Island in Waconia –
like Hermann Gödel, in his final nest
of parenthetical limit (righteous exactitude
of unknowing) – across the path
from Sarah’s parents (math
of relativity – some spousal quark beatitude)…
Where the world ends, & begins again;
at Swan Point, where her mother lies
who died the day his father’s eyes
first opened. Amid the Great Congregation
of synagogue & church (pain-bearing world)
one pearl-eye opens at the prow
of raven-beak Argo. Mark thou
how contrapuntal matrices of love enfold.
4.11.20
