now we are six

SOUL LIBERTY

Today be the birthday of granddaughter Sophie

the Bangladeshi-American.

Her Baba became a citizen

in 2017.  They’re just as American as you & me.

We made a covenant of equality

before God, long ago.

African-Americans know

how long it took to become just barely free,

not to say equal before the law

in this blood-soaked country.

It begins with soul liberty –

thumbprint of human dignity.  We saw

how Roger stood alone against the weight

of Boston magistrates,

to separate a faith’s dictates

from common civil rights – & shape a state

of openness, of global mutuality

– planted in equity,

grounded equality –

premonition of a new reality

emerging like a dream rose island

from an imagined Providence

(Roger’s capacious sense

of Edward Coke’s law-learned hand).

Sophie, dancing image of an unseen grace,

child of the universe

sprung up in Minneapolis,

take hold of your inheritance – one hopeful place.

8.21.19

most August wind-chime

MIGRANT TABERNACLE

So another August 8th-month

inches toward its close.

Whatever Pilate says,

goes – IN RI, nailed to a terebinth.

Whatever happens, happens, now.

An old man is an oak leaf

skimming like a thief,

going to ground.  & when the winds blow

the silver pipes of Sophie’s chime

go tingle-tangle... melody

of sea-blue cherub, see?

Clasping Columbia, his sweet tame

turtledove.  While her fire-engine chair

waits in my octagon

beneath late-summer sun –

a migrant tabernacle... Amor-

Shalom... transportable to Paradise.

Her father is a recent

immigrant, & citizen.

The Shekinah is mercy for chaste eyes –

unquenchable fountain of pure love

for simple existence, for

its mysterious source.  Our

wisdom, Sophie – like your turtledove –

comes shimmering down... she permeates

all things, & everywhere.

As it was always, my dear –

the mind of Love revives, creates.

8.31.18