FAMILIAR EYE
When the farmwoman goes out to sow
a scattering of cornseed
or fleurette africaine (dark weed
flung wide), she is a mason, too –
planting a cornerstone at dawn
to the northeast (between
the subtle nightshade of illusion
& nuanced elaborations of the sun).
Hope being the common denominator
of all our troubled labor
buried out there, somewhere.
Does language know? Prickly pear,
prickly pear... where the shadow falls
across an exact location.
33 light-years... (someone
WW knew – at Kitty Hawk?). Tiny candles
flicker in the hot wind from the crypt.
Presently details of the little
room emerge. Her title
to the seasoned sailor, found amidships
after the ashes scattered like black raven-
doves into infinity –
where Mr. Sunborn’s akme
of knowledge curled its crown toward heaven.
This the mandala the builders left me.
Jenny with her Book of J – my
golden lamb of Ghent... familiar eye
peeled back, unvarnished (dyeing history).
1.30.20
