moss-green lamb-rock

CHERRY PETALS

Anniversaries, conjunctions... Latrobe’s

bell tower in New Orleans

& a birthday (Walter Whitman’s)

twine reverberations, stellar probes.

This lone outcrop in far north wood

furred-over with green

& phosphorescent lichen

mimes in lime our original Head –

primordial earth-ram (sheepish lamb)

upon the adamant of Time –

Isis, or Miriam –

Virgin bedrock of the bright I AM.

Inexorability of violent history –

labyrinth of Minotaur –

wolf-trap for who we are

spooled out in filmy, rusty tragedy

after tragedy – the pile-up of ’68

the green redhead in Dallas

the blue blackbird in Memphis

& it all seems endless – infernal hate –

O brazen, obdurate Iron Age

of malice toward all!  Only

the slant eye of poetry

mourning on a misty Montauk stage

might warble a different kingdom comin’ –

chaste infant equality.

Your hummingbird infantry,

Walter – your cherry petals, Benjamin.

5.30.19

surfing Delta gumbo

sketch by Benjamin Latrobe, architect

LIGHT DOWRY

On this day, 200 years ago

Benjamin Latrobe won

the municipal commission

for the bell tower in New O. –

St. Louis Cathedral, surfing delta

gumbo (French-Indian-

Spanish-Anglo-American)

on canoe-back of turtle-flotilla.

Oak Apple Day, Restoration Day,

Rhode Island Statehood Day

& many another day

no doubt (not far from Whitsunday).

In the well of the king, of the king who must die

(before time began?) shone

a shade of green pine

grieving... like an old Irish eye.

Luminous melancholy, just a shade

from joy – from the well

of well-being, when all

shall be well (amid all things well-made).

When frost of fright-scorn, the old

icehouse of sacred king

slides into melt... & everything

shines in right splendor of childhood;

when young ones in Rhode Island

or New Orleans lift themselves

to the light dowry of El

Shaddai – her pact of love and understand.

5.29.19