the ordinary Union

KNIT WOOL

                 Eternity, O Eternity! That is our business.

                                                       – Roger Williams

She watches crows play in the sky

above her balcony.

Her dregs of memory

transmute to gaiety, give death the lie.

Cautantowwit was Raven-Lord

of Narragansetts.  Old

Canonicus told

Roger how dead souls were borne toward

Mexico, far off southwest...

Rog quilled it down.

That chief of great renown

was kind to him.  Knit wool is best

around head, limbs & heart

when winter ice descends.

I’m dreaming, friends.

One campfire (circling) is all my art.

The Red Wing river-clay is heavy,

as my mother knows.

O the harsh blows

that fall like thunder (Romeo, Julie)...

The body’s weight is catenary

Golden Gate (so

Jasper shows).  Blow,

Manitou... bring back the glory

of the ordinary Union.  It shall be

– when we return to Thee,

from sea to shining sea –

uncommon good (benevolent Eternity).

11.29.17

Caw-caw of chi-rho

WRY PLANET

The caw of a solitary crow

tracks its own echo straight

through the sonic vanishing point.

Past fanfare of the here & now

through a pinhole in the iris of Osiris

or some other shadow

Everyking from long ago.

Some Isis Peirce-the-Veil, or Most

High Elephant from Nile-source

cradling Victoria

for Homo Sap (Erecta) –

kindly Melchizedek, primeval Spouse

offering his star-crossed bread & wine

beneath Polaris &

the Twin Cup-Bears

to lift each soul into his milky Sign.

I hear the rasping of an iron swing.

C-row... chi-rho...  Behold –

a shepherd in his fold

of 99 lambkins!  The last king

looks out from bairn-cupola, a crown

of stars.  A gardener

in the graveyard.  Mary’s

pal, incognito (Son of Man).

A retina, streaked with a spectacle

of tears.  Psychopomp

beyond Caesar’s last trump.

Ocean-continuum... wry planet oracle.

3.15.16

Bronze Age harpoon

SNOW-CONFESSIONAL

These scarlet dogwood berries

sprinkling the patio

like drops of blood, O

thou October pale marine.  Seas

mottle thy face more than they should –

scars, age-spots, drawn

across youth long gone.  Her

billows drowned there, Robin Hood.

So the copper-pronged harpoon

dove deep, to sea-floor known

before Bronze Age.  Ravens

intone their learnèd funeral tune

& crows can recognize your face, 

Cautantowwit.  The moon

be pierced to russet soon;

your soul, also, cannot erase

persistent chronic blood-pain’s trace

that stains each chronicle

of hero-miracle,

mutters Antigone (in Mary’s place).

A coral circlet rings her hair –

aquamarine, full fathom

five; another kingdom

circumscribes (asper coin-lair).

You know it, Henry Buried-Man;

your snow-confessional

remorse codes – Rez is all.

Be reconciled, sez Rabbi Dan.

10.7.15

dogwood in October sun