beneath Corona Borealis

BLUE CANOE

While boy-o Henry skipped down Arthur St.

in birdsong Mendelssohn

a few miles up the trolley line

J. Buried-Man lingered on Arthur Ave (complete

Dream Song lament, at 57).  In Paris now

they’ll have to reconstruct the nave,

restore each curving architrave.

This knave goes drifting to St. Lou – his blue

canoe, beached crosswise (by Cahokia)

a kind of compass needle

aimed straight up.  Will weedy

Hobo ever stand erect himself?  Selah,

Ezekiel, Isaiah.  At San Vitale in Ravenna

or at Notre Dame, pilgrims

still stamp across the lurking limbs

of Lucifer – ravel a penitential way

by grace of Mary’s Ariadne-avatar.

It was her love for Theseus

(like Maggie Miriam’s for Jesus)

reeled him out, dis-mazèd – free & clear.

Lone Henry looks straight up, to Pole Star.

Ariadne’s Crown.  The toxic night

a donnybrook for his distraught

Columbia – his ark battered by Minotaur,

his Constitution of chaste liberty

suborned (sat on by Putin’s man).

Look, pilgrim, to the heights again –

whence cometh Thunderbird.  Dove… see?

3.29.20

cosmic Sing-Sing

WHEAT-BLADE

Gold catkins dangle from a twisted birch

like those heavy earrings

Empress Theodora strings

into mosaic (grey papyrus bark

afloat above Ravenna choirs

of San Vitale). The canoe

of state is lighter now –

only a woven fingershell or

chorale, a threadbare catenary

smile strung like a veil

from cosmic pole to pole

(north, south... from sunny Sydney

up to autumn-grey Paris).

There’s no place like home.

Kansas... or Burchfield foam

of leafy wind, of writhing tree...

unheimlichkeit unleash of slings.

Lincoln... King... JFK.

World-axle with Ojibway

wing-nut (rust of bee-stings).

Hexagons, unraveling.

The 6 paths of Black

Elk – diamondback

seal of universal Spring

shedding bright tombs of tattoos

into a gathering

of cosmic Sing-Sing –

prisoners in liberation blues

               *

& grays (old Frederick Douglass

understood the sinuous

ways of shifty US).

Let Egalité ring, sang Liberty lass.

So the cedar gazebo of the Word

(a flexible oracle

or circular coracle)

swims in a spiral toward the absurd

happiness of the whole creation –

the chaste eye of Union

at the heart of the onion-

dome of humanism (egalitarian)

welds in its molten planetary core

the future of affectionate

recognition.  Incarnate

octopus of Chinese lantern, your

Guillaume d’Orange Franciscan gate

frames solidarity

amid ecstatic charity

whorled in a fiddlehead agate

or Ariadne labyrinth

(primordial Spring).

Blue Vermilion thing

with stubborn terebinth

or almond flower (ancient

indomitable people-

bloom) – tall steeple

wheat-blade, waving, lambent.

4.24.17

shade of fig trees

OAKEN ARK

I remember the tall shade of fig trees

on Observatory Hill

in Sydney, their colossal

spread feet lifting leafy memories.

The diamond hologram glinting

upstairs – the Southern Cross

a silver doubleness,

a micro-mirror (winking, hinting).

Dante in Ravenna, on the coast

of swamps & tamaracks

the scars of Whites & Blacks

scorching his palm (a sulfur-host)

felt a light flute-breeze ruffle

his conch-shell ear

whispering draw near –

beheld Matilda waltz the Buffalo

(an aboriginal design

painted on granite

for Woodpecker-flight

framing two Thunder-twins benign)

& plumbed the gravity of clay

that wheels so slowly

through mortality

toward candescent kiln-fired Day

of Jubilee   the metamorphoses

of starfish realms to stars

the green & gold pillars

of corn & wheat   Georgina’s

laughter in the new-mown fields.

So her green-almond eyes

drew Alighieri to Vitale’s

arc of Paradise (welds

souls into an infant baptistery,

a fan of everlasting

life).  Interesting,

murmurs iconoclast Henry

Hobo   but I would bend the lens

slightly   enfold the ray

into a Bay of Biscay

alphabet soup   Beguine begin-agains

based on an anchored oaken ark

of milky bread & wine

the whole human communion

in the sun of mnWmn (spark

from a Galilean jewel of light).

Inside the delicate crystal

gently circling... still

potter’s whirl from infinite night

around the whisper gallery

Twine Monastery

pregnant humble glory

of Francesca (Piero’s poverty)

leaves mutter in the sea-breeze

just beyond the orange

bridge   Georgina’s Grange

the dusty gardeners   Maria sees

1.24.17

Venice - Rimini - Ravenna

BLUE MARBLE

The lattice-work of Ariadne,

barely (in my crepuscular

History Theatre) there.

The river flows on, over yonder –

Eridanos, Mississippi, Po –

moving past this osier

excellence of rare

dear Dr. Wise.  Minerva, Virgo?

Beatrice, Julie Littletree...

Maggie... Miriam

of Bethany, or Bethlehem...

limpid over hopscotch Sally

gallivanting crost her vaulting

Paradise of glimmering

frater Pantocrator (wing,

knave, to that sheepfold ceiling).

Meanwhile my double creeps along

like Ezra the Venetian

Blind, touching the stolen

Rimini passage with an aching

brow; beyond his haunts by the canal

& sibylline bone-staves

Franciscans hid in caves,

a living shepherd leaps the wall

(disguised by Ariadne’s woof).

These corridors are spongy

depths.  So take the plunge –

blue marble veins Vitale’s roof.

3.22.16

Grace Ravlin

GRACE RAVLIN

The summer’s Sky-Reflector-Net

is replicated in a gentle

eye : matrix of the spindle,

mote where lattice angles meet.

From Providence to Paradise

a simple triple-step,

sideways & back.  Steep

recapitulation – say, Toulouse

to Matilda, Queensland to Provence –

by cavern candlelight;

those hallowed aliens might

be us; San Vitale’s green silence

the dawn of some Franciscan renaissance.

She is the tender sphere’s

orbit... her love inheres

in eggshell domes, the garden’s permanence

Apollinaire after the war

ash in his peace pipe

Georgina with ripe

plum   to hand   so far

from feral death’s-head   pride   spite

the nations sleep   their rage

assuaged   hate in its cage

for now   low flute   bonsoir, bonne nuit

Grace Ravlin sets her easel there

Overlooking George Washington’s

Garden   good evening, Cyrus

greetings, Rose   O somersault   sweet air

6.26.15

Grace Ravlin : Overlooking George Washington's Garden, 1922