alongside the canoe

SHIP’S EYE

John Slocum fell into a swoon

in the sea-tinged woods

by Puget Sound; his words

of hope shook many Shaker men

out of their sins.  Sparks fly far

from cedar blaze – the sea

booms in a ship’s eye

lashed by yardarm to the polestar.

It’s not the size of the cosmos

but the color of the scales,

gilded when dawn pales

rippling on ice-floes

across the horizon, back to Ocean –

over hide rooftops

sun-parched corn crops

in the jungle (Squaxin, Galilean).

When Davy the Song Prince pranced

alongside the canoe

Maggie saw what she knew

was hers, & grew embarrassed –

yet her almond eye looks to the sea

& the song endures.  A stone

fell from turtle-grey heaven –

the flare of a meteor, a mystery;

an infinite cloud-bank shaped like wing

a feather of ring-dove

signifying love

left brush-marks down by Slocum Spring.

9.26.16

Shakespeare's acorn

MICRO-MOSAIC

This circle of 7 emerald palms

(with 8 red dots across

lifelines) was pressed

by hand – an infant hand, Phoebe’s –

under the guiding eye of Grace

(in Providence).  Now

I set my cup (micro-

mosaic from Byzantium) in place

atop these marble squares, that trace

brass compass & sundial

of Roger Williams.  Trial

by English fire (Coke’s carapace) 

was his – to bring the Narragansett

word for liberty

to London (& to me).

The sovereignty of good, in its

vernacular incarnation, is

one global, crystalline,

turtleshell acorn –

Shakespearean lap of happiness

(skullcap, human Golgotha-dome

worn meekly in Ferrara

& Venice – Ravenna,

Providence...) – What cheer?  Welcome,

warbles Canonicus, chief

Shaker under raven-

falls (Columbian) –

his handshake stronger than belief.

1.27.16