TIRED HAND
November is the evening of the year.
Peasants in Bruegel scenes,
old Hobo has-beens
cluster by each barnyard bonfire.
Smells of farm & mill & stream,
the salt of drying fish.
Legends of Gilgamesh,
Leviathan. Earth’s drowsy dream
wherein these van der Weyden faces
peer, like wildflowers
(like elemental creatures).
Matrix of sky & sea places,
of perishable limestone prints
from whence a soul emerges
smiling... Demiurge’s
horsehair, flickering (Francesca’s hints).
Medieval bread & wine of things.
Cascade of bridges over
other bridges – river
washing under massive rings.
The solidarity of timebound
beasts, breathing together
under whip, rein, tether.
Muddy, between Arch & Mound
looms... pregnant with Spiritu.
What Piero knew,
Bruegel & Jasper too –
shade-palm, surrounding you
*
& me – stretching toward Pacific blue.
I layer watercolors so,
over crepuscular canoe
hid in Italian garage (one almond clue).
The limestone waterfalls in Rimini
like tears across a scallop-
sign. The curtains drop,
the veil gives way... a human unity
of suffering is all our play.
Da Vinci, with tired hand
limns one command –
love one another, every day.
For we are one. A multitude,
personified. Benevolent
Ancient of Days bent
each into the mirror’s flood,
together – riverflow of heart-
veins from the earth
welling to fiery hearth –
lenticular sunset, plangent cloud-art.
So spinning from primordial rose
the golden maize of Chartres
guides you to its Artist...
Daedalus, not Minotaur; Grace
Ravlin, not some puppet-master
in the Kremlin. Shadow
of Mona Lisa grin... you
rise before the fall (Easter).
11.10.17
