on long feet

LIGHT RABBI

Calm evening at the end of April.

Wisdom of the ancients –

unity of changing constants.

A continuum… a synthesis… a will

to find a meaning in the whole;

a portion of instinctive

gratitude – the urge to live

unfolding origami in the soul.

We dwell beneath an aegis of benevolent ideas

like clouds (reflecting sunlight,

bringing rain).  & everything

will be all right, my father said – his palm

over my flooding eyes.  This the providence

of sparrows & tall kings –

of all those feathered things

that soar so bravely into turbulence.

So then… who’s your imaginary friend,

Henry?  That loony Hobo

drifting from his local slough

down to the Gulf of Mexico?  Just a bend

in the river?  See thou, Hart says

– touches a key, perhaps.

After the world-collapse

he’ll still be burbling his sabbath-sense;

planting a tender middle C

between Ocean & me

where clay & sea

are cleft at last, to rescue Thee 

                *

– the clé to my ecclesia, Julie – 

a soft glissando pour l’église

from San Francisco to Louise

(grey Dolphy surfacing beside me).

& if reality is simply a supremely poetic idea

then the Imago of images

is like a seed of peacefulness –

a still point (painted on a bowl in Cahokia)

or that eye-in-hand Hobo held out to me

the wad of river-mud

Rabbi patterns for the blind

saying, Ephphatha… (gently, gently).

Everything has already been redeemed

& an orb rests in Hobo’s eye

with dewfall of memory

& earth-pangs for the not-yet-dreamed.

Everything rising with the soeur-coulombe

the sister-dove, the Jonah-Joan

the twin, O my beloved one

light Rabbi hopping through the gloom

on long feet   heading for the nest

on crest of wave

that vertical canoe-nave

pronged   at heart of Southern Cross

6 tracks of Black Elk diamond

ghost dance of Rio del

Espiritu   sprung up

for you & me   out of dis April pond

4.30.20

down around Kay-Rho

SALT-LICK

Prince Henry Hal, like a latter-day Latrobe

went surveying his great property

in swamps – following Path P

down around Kay-Rho, mapping his globe.

& he was most lost.  Loster than lost.

His sidekick Hobo sighed.  Said –

this palm at the end of your mind

holds an eye that glows, a wave-tossed

moon.  Pearl, embossed with diamond

& ruby… emeralds for eyelashes.

There, where kingfisher splashes –

a quatrefoil rose window, set in almonds.

Notre Dame burned down today, Hobo.

The blaze destroyed the spire,

almost the whole… – F’ sho.  Fire

will do that.  But there’s another one, y’know.

We already passed that house.  Down MLK

Way, on Black Elk Boulevard

(in Buffalo).  Look hard,

Henry – you’ll see him sign the X-tree

with his finger… mark the six trails

like a phosphor Southern Cross.

His medicine mends every loss –

’twas his last full measure split the rails

like lightning.  Now the brave who give

their lives to heal the sick

come to his green clover salt-lick –

circle the hearth-fire – bright, contemplative.

4.15.20

like an unremarkable cup nest

SLOW CHANT

Brown river, in a transept of browns.

In a gully of mid-March.

She slides by Arch

to Gulf, to be engulfed (drowns).

A scrawny bird scrapes overhead.

Plain sea-gull?  Or

some magpie pio-pio –

newsy jailbird finch (last heard

in 1938)?  What about Mudpie Robbins,

the St. Louis Cardinal?

Pitches his meta-material

nested steady state hysteresis (spins

on clumps of slag – chaotic shmush

of paired radii

with reversible pi

slippage).  Camouflage whoosh

like an unremarkable cup nest, filled

with grass & rootlets…

one a them twig safety nets!

Jams into stadium – an emerald,

mobile stable of staple u-particles

crowded along a spectrum

between sand, cotton… some

aleatory compass… (see Hunter King articles).

Over the chained bay waters –

rhumb line of pilot-bird.

Oscillating upward

into a faery 4-leaf clover’s

             *

earliest, minuscule sward…

as a Newport plover’s

nimble track veers

o’er sand waves (Ocean bard).

So from the lifeless mineral heart

of Minotaur, a green

sprig, emerald gemstone

springs.  With Nestorian art

(Eugenio’s grin) all the birds of the air

assemble in the palm tree;

a mustard seed (tiny,

fiery) molts to canoe (in her Ferrara lair)

& branches crossways, into quatrefoil; 

the remote & royal midnight

blue of Southern Cross (right

up there) hovers over river-soil,

& the Firebird (that sole Pentecostal

scorching glossolalia

slammed into orb-regalia)

skims from our Mater Dolorosa

biomimetic widow Rose… bent

beneath rose window

(Apollinaire’s slow

chant out of humbuggery, resilient).

So the nesting instinct of the Nazir,

the mother Hen of Rabbi

Rooster-Crow, will sigh

& spring an Easter egg (O Chanticleer).

3.18.20

chaired in the adamant of time

GOLDEN EYE

Everything known beforehand, O

my prophetic soul –

fate of gray pebble,

unknown soldier.  Black Sea, Argo...

those towering fig trees outside

the Sydney Observatory.

& inside, the orrery

projecting Southern Cross as diamond

(4-dimensional octahedron, or

great acorn of light).

A blue-green planet,

turquoise, emerald – your

dream-song door (hinge balanced

on a level’s golden eye).

Heirship of carpenter’s high-

beam ballet... tightrope (entranced).

A figurehead, chaired in the adamant

of Time.  Isis in Ohio,

Iowa... your Clover, so

low.  Lift her out of the slough, St.

Joan – lift her out of the grave.

A salience in St. Louis –

upturned canoe... Jessie

Ophelia, mickle gateway (moon-wave).

Behold, a child is born, Virgin

appears from heaven again;

my iron age turns golden

monarch, winged flower (human).

3.7.19

arise, iris

GOLDEN RULE

An iris opened on the first morning

in June.  Like a Byzantine

empress, rich purple &

gold – her petals butterfly wings

or flying buttresses at Chartres.

In the mirror of her eye

a spark of fiery beauty

keeps us tethered from the start

to time & clay & gravity.

What we know of day

stems from the way

her lullaby enclosed Night Sea

with human shores.  So poetry,

say Anna, Nicolai,

Osip; the warm akme

glows like a sun-hearth, humanly;

so that we feel at home on earth,

where all our rights & dignity

are cherished – held inalienably

near, defended, justified – their worth

continually savored by our freedom.

This the bright consensus

won by Athens once,

& by Jerusalem – that liberty of Rome

as well, as well-water.  Oasis

of mild light & shade,

Athena-keel for well-made

coracle – pilot’s compass

              *

through confounding waves – hardy braid

Arachne spun for us

to cross Pontus Axeinos

(Lethe too, returning from the dead).

Those immense majestic figs

haunting a promontory

in Pacific Sydney

guard the Observatory – wisdom’s pegs

around a mounted, tented hologram

of Southern Cross.  Diamond

of floating light – almond

icosahedron – luminous emblem

of the 6-way star Black Elk beheld

on prairie underneath wide sky

                  *

           *           *

                  *

invisible Manitou we travel by

all night, to where bridge-rivets weld

phenomena to Thanksgiving.

Kind circuit of a whisper-

dome, thy Presence clear

& sure Love-blessings bring!

That ghost dance out of Resurrection

Cimetière – when Buried

Man became unburied

after three days in the ocean-

chest of earth – concluded with a sail

due north, to Ocean

River, where it all began;

& now, like Jonah out of mother whale

                  *

or like Carlotta out of Vertigo

a little charley-horse

tightened its muscle-force

around the oaken knee of Sampo

(read : Humanity) amid thick shade

of English oaks (Fig-

Newton Township – dig?).

An acorn Lincoln-logos made

branched into spine & ribs & mast; 

the human rights of Edward

Coke transmuted seaward

in good Williams’ boat; at last

the courageous limb bore fruit – Soul

Liberty.  Where Alighieri

drew the line, we

carry on – our freedom’s in the whole

Thanksgiving Bowl of civil rights.

You cannot chain the wind

of smiling Manitou, nor bind

Creation with your rabid fights,

O fanatic unseasoned fools!

Free mind like lightning

(your dead branches blasting)

lifts just Jonah with her Golden Rule

& adds the pearl of high Sophia

Jesus chanted, Francis

planted... holy kiss

of cosmic Union – azure everlasting Gaia.

6.2.17

the Ids of March

LITTLE ISLAND

                                the fallow air grows milky

The Rio shines in quietness,

mottled by fading ice.

Cato the Woodpecker is

prince of cottonwoods – his highness

tock-tocks like Railsplitter toward

the taproot of Twin Cities’

canker sores.  He’s

whittling his wooden law – a word

scrimshawn against all takers,

all Caesars of commonweal,

in the court of last appeal –

galactic axle of the makers.

Is this a holiday?  The soothsayer’s

a dreamer (pass, tense).

Cinna lost his innocence

mangled among conspirators –

murdering for liberty (the mob

took it another way).

Is this a holiday?

The Ids are on the march – to Nob

Hill, where nabobs are on fire

amid their books.  Moses

threw tomes into a rose-

bush (ruby thorn in rabid empire)

& King David warped his harp

with smooth rushes & grass –

his humble plant shall pass

anthills of Tyre, the minnow tarp

                   *

of Lucifer – the arrogant hare

shall slip behind the turtle

& the dove shall hurtle

like a hummingbird (plum everywhere).

The sea wind washes the shoreline;

she lifts my face toward

her calm sunlight.  The sword

shall pierce your own heart, Minute Man,

little island seeker after Liberty –

her candle glimmers, copper-

green, where grasshopper

& ant both anchor.  Charity

of Chartres, Maid of Orleans,

Spirit of St. Louis

circling toward Paris,

read us what soul freedom means –

infinite mercy & joy

lifting the universe

from snowy ovoidness

into a Shakespeare play –

late Mississippian romance

only the first people

have beheld.  Quadruple

diamond, sapphire expanse,

arc of a Southern Cross above

refulgent rose island –

we expiate... to understand

your ever-brimming streams of Love.

3.15.17

pileated woodpecker

make it new

OLD SALT

Herman riveted to crow’s-nest,

Dante wearing out

his shoes... Weldon, forgot

by Golden Gate, & Berryman, a crust

of snow beside the limestone bank.

Moon rose from sea

with magnanimity,

night’s passionate gravity... & sank

these antithetical children of the sun

beneath immeasurable Ocean-

wave.  Matrix of one

twinkling eye... stuttered translation

from sharks’ dogma to Cutty Sark

sped rondure-eloquence –

an Ocean River sense,

human inheritance (almond birthmark).

The old salt bears his Southern Cross 

as shark-tooth earring,

tattooed heart.  The singing

shrouds (sea-urge, wave-moss)

remind him of Jonah, lost infant

of the crew – of Jasper,

& Francesca too – Ariel

in Ravenna pines (al fresco fundament).

Make all things new.  An emerald gong

plumbs planetary tides –

sun-shimmer plies

Gennesaret to Tuscan hills (all-human song).

7.13.16

Icon Man

Note to reader : some of these poems are pretty darn obscure.  If you peruse this blog's web version (as opposed to mobile-phone version), you will find links, at the bottom of the page, to subject entries (labels) - which might be helpful in tracking down my footprints, or other footprints.  This holds true for all the Ravenna Diagram posts on this here blog.

MOSAIC SHEPHERD

The knot in the heart is a universal

wedding ring, wherever

you are.  Heavier

than iron, ce diamant mondial

de l’amande.  Bright orange lozenge-

mandorla, shedding leaves

of tears – vicarious

miniature trees (strange

fruit).  Like the shady crossroads

with the Dead End sign –

a little Chinese lantern

(glass by LaFarge).  Six nodes

in one honeycomb eye – melodious

riddle of light & shade.

Henry & John, a cannonade

off Sydney Harbor... looming ficus

guarding Southern Cross.  They sought

a figure for relief –

hoopoe... cloverleaf...

barely-veiled grief.  Stray mote

of dark December.  Henry looks up

through rose window.

A rim around the chi-rho,

hint of shining salt.  Red stop

sign on the dynamo, outlined

in cedar-glow (Mosaic

Shepherd Stands in Lake).

What the heart seek she shall find.

4.5.16

Green confetti for Bunny Rabbi

SOLOMON’S SEAL

Morning sunlight on the riverbank.

Old bridge in the background.

Hubbub of human sound

gone quiet here – some time to think.

The ranks of cottonwoods draw shapes

in four dimensions – homesick

willows by Euphrates,

brooding vaults of shady Chartres,

cloisters clad with marigolds

on orange heights (Monte

Cassino) – where they

summon up papyrus scrolls

like hopeful honeybees, reviving

scribble-cribs in royal reels

of pearly Solomon’s seal –

fern, aloe, acacia... (ever-living

green confetti, for Easter Rabbi).

I pace these precincts with

a vagrant slouch, as if

I’d missed the point.  & then I see

you! – bright invincible

companion – always there

in your cloud-rocking chair

at End of Time, & trouble –

familiar storyteller, Indian Guide

whose hearth blazes from Southern

Cross to blue Vermilion – within

Love’s angled arc (smile-wide).

3.25.16

Henry's Sheba (down south)

RORSCHACH FIGURE

This gaunt, towering, aged pine,

adorned with a scattering

of obsolete Christmas

lights, draws a straight sober line

lifting its crow’s nest to point

of perihelion (invisible sun

behind galactic one).

My ghost-ship creaks with accent

grave along her seventh wave

(sky-reckoning) – southern

constellation, borne

on Magellanic surf.  An octave

mutely unfolds – an origami

Chinese lantern, spun

outward (on tiny silken

struts) into a diamond Chi-

Rho maze – Rorschach figure

of raven, or monarch

brain (Venn-Neva wreck)...

my spider-path, or Chartres lure.

Eurydice of Dream Song,

Henry’s Sheba down south.

Proceeds by word of mouth –

transfigures saturnine keening

to hopeful whistle.  Chickadee,

junco?  Woodpecker –

rousing Ravenna nature

morte (ligneous crucifix-aubade).

1.15.16