for Notre Dame

PACIFIC ARC

April air, so clear today.  The quiet sea-

blue sky.  Clear as that great bell

ringing in Paris – for the swell

of hearts, for Notre Dame (in her infirmity).

In Minneapolis, as everywhere, the plague

confines each to monastic cell.

For contemplation, just as well…

for dreams, these patchworks made with rag.

My own dream surfaced in a film – Deserto Rosso

(M. Antonioni).  Monica Vitti, in

moss-green – damaged angelo-mammi;

her little boy, gone lame (povero bambino)

at her ceramic studio; those indecisive men

full of morose indifference

battered by commercial arrogance,

industrial violence… & the wistful omen

of the desolate cathedral (windswept, hollow

Sant’Apollinare).  Alighieri

stood in this nave once; calmly

pondered the tall wraiths, gleaming in shadow –

Justinian, & Theodora… all the martyrs

in procession, holding their lamps

lifted, unmoving… lambs

in a moss-green meadow, by the still waters.

Just so each poet carries in their heart

like robin’s egg in oak leaf nest

a Paradise, made roughly manifest –

as Langland’s Imaginativa would impart

dream-visions of the human Temple

hidden there.  So Henry Church

would make a supreme sketch

on local limestone, an American example –

one Venn diamond, rimmed with Jonah-pen

borrowed from humble Maximus

whose subtlest partitas mass

the radiant matrix of divine & human

(union of the two-in-one, distinct

without division or confusion).

Curl, then, into this acorn

nest of light, this Rose of every precinct –

Apollinaire & Mary Magdalen   together

witness at the sepulcher

*

Grace attentive   through Hell-sulfur

Love revive   on silver loon-feather

When the local materials begin to coalesce

& the collage takes shape & form

& the design of Maximus, his dream

translates (in waves) our constitutional mess –

for that incarnate Union of the two-in-one

implies a like distinction between

Church & State – salvation

neither by Emperor nor Pope, but won

deep within each living human soul

in liberty of conscience

loving freedom of response –

so that the invisible Churnagogue is whole

& multi-confessional – universal – hidden

like Micòl’s almond canoe

in the garage, in Ferrara (you

know what I mean).  So we begin again

where we ended before – in dreams

in shadow-lands of fiction

in the feathery benediction

under that granite palm of Roger Williams

in the old town of Providence, the rose

rood of Rhode Island

with an origami flower-bend

beside the humble stream of San Francesco

flowing to sky-tinged Gulf, flowing to Sea

under a firm Pacific arc

lit by candescent sunset spark

far off there   breathing   with you & me

4.16.20

another blast from the Oak of Phenoque

CROWBAR TORCH

The poem might be a superconductor,

its topology so homespun,

threadbare, cold & thin –

a 1-dimensional egg-beater

jamming a needle’s eye in Denmark,

or Verona.  The capstan

spools the whole yawning

span – the wheel is made of holm oak,

evergreen & ancient, holy.

Argo is her name;

a million eyes flame

round her oaken rim, & Ariadne

anchors her from Ocean floor –

her catenary line

loops gracefully, from spine

of cedar mast to dark-green shore.

The old exotic matter of Bretagne

sleeps in her sybil’s leaves;

the lovelorn wind that grieves

through Dante’s cedars in Ravenna

carry G’ma’s freighter Gospel, too –

from Cape Ann out to Frisco

through the Gulf of Mexico.

Jessie, Ophelia... tarragon, rue...

her sleepy spells rise from the clay

& spin toward constellations

full of Okie calibrations –

a rain of acorns hits the hay

                   *

where long-abandoned train stations

sink back into the prairie

& a grey turtle (airy,

airiest) flew fluting through the nation’s

backwaters.  The love that moves

the Son & the moth-stars

goes raying through a potter’s

helm, the way an LP grooves

(Columbia).  Her ire will not last

forever – no, Iona

&/or Iowa have shown a

willingness to rise from lead ballast;

Do-Well, Do-Better & Do-Best

have joined hands in a wing –

a simple pleasant wedding,

thistle-burred (give red & blue a rest).

A century ago, the Meuse-Argonne

became a charnel house.

Grandpa Edward S.

was there, & shipped home (lucky one)...

– are Guillem’s muses all gone now?

An airplane lifts from Eiffel

to New York – the spell

takes hold – Liberty lifts her crow-

bar torch – ignites like acorn

from galactic hearth...

summons magnetic North...

O steadfast keel, O evergreen horn!

10.5.16