part of the main

HEARTH-FIRE

I stepped outside of the quarantine

early this morning (one quiet

crystalline April moment).

A mourning dove, sequestered in a pine

nearby, was practicing, solo (adagio

con molto sentimento d’affetto).

& therefore do not send to know

for whom the bell tolls – Adios, amigo.

We don’t hear them much now, here

as once in Rhode Island.

& it’s hard to comprehend

how time-space telescopes into the mirror

(O my clay-rimmed, worm-riddled heart

& soul)… yet her melancholy

plaint echoes, in me

the solitude that ripens all my art.

We do not belong just to ourselves.

We are part of the main.

I am a half-hitch in a seine

flung from an ark, whose kelson delves

across the Black Sea of the universe.

Borne by embattled star-murmurs,

this pressure on the king spurs

martyrs to out-run the royal curse –

so Socrates & Tommy More, Jesus

absolve the men who killed them;

so their normative love-law anthem

sighs out warm fire into cold sacrifice.

4.19.20

you seek your inner Notre Dame

LUMBERING FLIGHT

This April sunset behind the trees,

like a rose & phosphorescent

robin’s egg.  Fundament

of natural radiance; architectural breeze.

On Île-de-France, in the river Seine

a throng of men & women

flung boulders toward heaven –

to celebrate the feast of their communion

& the miraculous feat of that

lumbering flight.  The chill

granite yawn in the hill

where the dead man lay (requiescat)

like a counterweight to their primordial

joy – its hollow barrow

(familiar dank & narrow

room) will serve as reconciling grail

when we have gathered for the wedding

in the flowery vale of Cana,

& amid the hubbub-haha

Mary murmurs – Now, my son, bring

out the wine...  We will not build

another Notre Dame.

& yet our rivers are the same.

The Rio del Espiritu Santo is filled

with rosmarine passion of light –

invisible, unchanging,

radiant, enlightening

fiery indomitable apex bright.

4.22.19

the whole sweet Seine will glow

TINY BULB

A ghost of snow hung in the air

like glittering smoke.

Dusted from a hemlock

by a twirling jay – like nothing there.

Harsh cold rain goes crystalline,

shines in white waves

of domes (over sea-caves,

graves of grass).  Adamantine

turtleshell or judgement seat

of green sea-swell

beyond heaven & hell...

only a murmur makes complete

your copper frame, chère Liberty.

Emerald cicada husked

in tamaracks, at dusk –

vesture & camouflage for thee,

O soul set free!  Out of the spiral

gloom of time you come,

crown of the human kingdom –

like yellow-black spry swallowtail

up from your petrified cocoon,

or incognito monarch

skittering from ark

to ark (Amsterdam-Rangoon

Line – Mendelssohn to Mexico)

– or like a tiny bulb

planted in mirror-hub

of rose islands – blazing so

                *

bright the whole sweet Seine will glow

from end to end –

the safety net, my friend!

Jonah’s repast (Apollinaire’s tomorrow).

Thus the planet’s plain warm hearth

was set in diamond

& salt – with two kind

hands melded was gentle Earth

into a homely heart (Heimlich

maneuver from afar).

Gates cracked ajar –

the broken cistern, Cain’s conflict –

the Minotaur in every man –

the frozen ideologies,

bitter mythologies

of gulag-mind, in her began

to melt... the light played on the iron

spring... rust turned

green... mold burned

clear... the Psyche-lamp of Zion

lifted from the harbor.  Then

that fireplace couch of ages

in the molten kiln of sages

rose from black soil – crowed the Hen-

Cock!  Morning gathering beneath

the lighthouse surfaced

in your radiant face

O Matrix of candescent wreath.

12.13.16

Le Pont Mirabeau

BLUE PLANES

Autumn already in the air.  The lace

net lifts slightly in the window

breeze.  Down the road

a train thunders steadily across

the iron bridge.  Eads, in St. Louis

same river in St. Paul

ebullient waterfall

descends into incessant sluice-

ways.  At Fond du Lac, Guillaume

will wave his pipe   the smoke

floats in blue planes   OK.

Autumnal, your pellucid tomb.

Under a beautiful water-mirror

flows the safety net.

My waif on the parapet,

my Juliet... little evergreen spear

crowning a rangy monarch span –

my songe, my sign, my Seine.

Cloverleaf Corn Maiden

twirls her blue-green mist of pine

on heron-foot again   Sophia

skips through the basilica

like Liberté-Columbia

her grey eyes scan geomatria

here twin circles merge, twin shores

align omega points

&   Maggie Galilee anoints

her Galileo with the milk of stars

8.26.16

Today is the birthday of poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

A good essay (Celan's Mandelstam)

[p.s. HG Poetics photo was taken on bridge over the Seine, early '90s]