SILVER CHEST
Uncle George the plowman zigzags calmly
weaving his furrows back
& forth (west of Fond du Lac).
Laboring almost at rest, along his way.
The black soil teems with memories.
Childhood in Mendelssohn,
a helium balloon –
only now the fatal pine shades Miriam’s
plein air Jubilee (specific gravity
of coffin-keel). Time,
History here touch the rim
of a labyrinth (Fro-Back, so corny)
whose perimeter outlines her face –
smiling, dreaming, lost
in the supple meadow-grass
of Eros flowering to Agape (O Grace).
Spruce Mountain rises straight ahead,
pilgrim – just south of Bonnie
Craigielee. Matilda will be
waltzing there, in a tamarack shade
not far from the sea; she will take your hand
where kids’ bird-voices
boomerang – where earth rejoices
in equilibrium, & equity. One command
radiates Franciscan swag of turtledove;
one cloud sheds orange arcs
over antipodean parks
of aboriginal penitence (blue Jonah-love).
8.22.16
painting by Phoebe Gould (about age 10)
