disenchantment of the sacred wood

 SECOND CHILDHOOD

This is that ancient harvest night.

Hobo curls deep into his nest

of old leaves, with his ghost

of a motherland... everything all right.

The Middle Ages were a second childhood

for homesick gentlemen, broken

by the gears of modern men –

the disenchantment of the sacred wood.

That light-filled limestone in the towns

offered to Mary Theotokos...

or the tart fervor of François

Villon!  Guild banners, pennants, clergy gowns

blazed with a commonality belied

by profiles of sad Synagoga,

goad for theological amnesia.

Her crown askew, her flock must hide.

Mum Quaker Hobo snores now

in a pile of aspen leaves.

Canada poplar sheaves,

he mumbles, to a sunflower (somehow).

She’s Pando in Italian, he dreams.

Largest clone colony

below the surface... maybe

the universe.  A raven-glance beams

at prow of her canoe, slips by.

Your motherland is endless,

someone whispers.  So this mass

of dead leaves limns one breathing aye.

                                                            10.31.19

curious Winter's Tale

FRAIL FOLIO

Tell us a curious Winter’s Tale

before October ends.

This cottonwood sheds

flagship – by remnant sail,

from crown of flimsy raven nest.

Berryman’s birthday.

Not a block from here... hey.

Fold him he water music (final test).

Pledge of confirming intellect

spurs poet to sole deed.

Life’s halcyon meed.

Plum plummet (kingfish dialect).

Not that yellow-gold & blacken’d

leaf, cornered in eddies

keyed to cotton levies,

blackface parodies... Huck reckon’d

not.  Rather this lightweight,

ineffable lovelight –

staging for drifting wight

her leaf-romance (it’s not too late,

Hermione).  Tale told by idiot

king, floating everything –

how twin brothers ring

the mirror lake of Camelot,

& Guinevere & Lancelot

surface (Gennesaret)

Stravinsky trance-daughter

by prairie vortex... oaken chariot.

10.25.18

bebop robin

OKIE NOOK

Sophie’s sunny little birthday balloon

with the starry polka-dots

is losing air now – that’s

how it is with balloons.  Under octagon

of the gazebo roof, like a spiderweb

in golden brown.  The Sacred

Wood was reconfigured –

scarred & scored rough oak nub

rounded to slight chaste coracle.

Apollo’s memory of Daphne

wells near Mississippi

into gnarled pillars (maze or miracle?);

one bebop robin solos from 

an Okie nook, wears

pork-pie hat... & there’s

a poppy (rich red-purple plum)

unfolding down his chest – an origami

floating city, cordial

with accordions, with all

things orbital (inverted harmony,

fresco to Viennese).  An island rose

out of infinite green,

balanced on submarine

turtledove blimps (of caritas);

the loping soul of liberty

sprang from Goodwill

her dancing shoes – & (still

traipsing) turns opal Star of the Sea.

9.13.16

One golden witchetty grub

Once again, I countermand my own resolution... the urge to share is hard to resist.

FINAL ACT

They’ve found a fracture in the stone

unnoticed before.

The Holy Sepulchre

is buckling beneath the weight of its own

chapel.  & the confessions have

at last made common vow –

the alpha & omega

of restorations.  Centuries of

soot from votive candles must

be wiped clean; the vault

shored with titanium bolts

& stabilizing mortar, all the dust

blown free – for a strange energy

is here.  The Holy One

has set his seal upon

Jerusalem – the seal of a kiss (hey

ey yo).  Blind King Oedipus

is pharmakon – both

curse & cure; an oath

of the Aranda limns a sacred circus

for the Origin beyond hunger

& prey.  Man is both Man

& Grub; one handspan

joins them, sacred totem-pair

distinct without division, separation

or confusion.  Would

you return to the Wood

where, riven-branching, all began?

                      *

All the world’s a stage.  The Totem

glimmers in earth-cavern

like a mémoire of perfection;

handprint of omni-profundum,

quiet & invisible as wind.

The hand carves a circle

over gray sea, pearl

of adamantine quiddity – your mind

& heart, your soul, my wounded Psyche.

What will they find then,

beneath the slab?  One

golden Witchetty Grub?  One Nike,

linen, soiled by jogging Time?

I think they might unveil

a lost fresco – pale

replica (by Piero) of the same

design that, through the Ice Age,

lifts the crocus.  Stubborn,

indomitable baton,

both crozier & calumet – rage

will not overwhelm your calm beauty.

I think of Late Romances

revolving into dances

all around the Globe... O, we

have not yet seen the final act!

Ineffable victory

of meekness... it shall be,

because it is, always.  O blooming Fact!

6.26.16