guarding the garden

painting by Phoebe Gould (ca. 1992?)

GREEN CORN

Half-moon tonight, like a silver flask

of molten lava.  On this date

George Washington was translate

(1799).  Here’s his life-mask :

fine profile.  Merging in white clay,

like a peaceful moon.

Landlord, when all’s said & done.

Valley Forger, sensing Californ-i-ay

in the green corn of his plantation

garden.  Grace Ravlin

etched that evening scene –

sweet Virgo in Virginia (dawning nation).

The myth rides with the Indian.

Scars limbs of slaves.

Everyone behaves.

A raven-crumb plummets into ocean.

Something’s lugged back, out of clay...

the lunar wilderness.

Innocence, blessedness –

Sophia twirling in the calm of day.

Like young Hal emerging from a golden egg

(his father’s legacy).

Attainted crown, see –

buried bones in Resurrection (Pig’s

Eye) Cemetery.  Across the river,

on Lakota Bluff.

Two swords – it is enough.

Gesthemane is haunted, Indian-giver.

12.14.18

Rosebud mission doors

ANOTHER CLOUD

Hunchback Richard & the Hunkpapas

were driven off the earth

in hails of lead; their leather

shirts splayed in the newspapers

like ragged flags of slander (flapped

by harrying wind into

nonentity).  The men who

cornered them were full of sap –

Miles, Sherman – clinking heroes

for a swell new nation;

never had a notion

of the Lakota they drowned in woe.

The Great Spirit will judge, muttered

Red Cloud.  Old Manitou

your deeds shall deal to you.

The Rosebud mission doors are shuttered

now.  Over Washington monuments

another cloud congeals,

rubidium-fierce.  Sky-seals

are torn – rage flows in torrents

through slick marble halls, bears down

skewed scales with partisan

self-servicing, crude

greed, the yap of infinite Mammon –

armored in barking thunder-tread

of heavy weaponry

(gunfire from Albany

to Bernardino – many children dead).

2.16.16