OPEN SEA
Hobo lingers in his old hideout,
musing on Time passing
inexorable, unceasing.
Even that Son of Man, no doubt,
is subject to the steady stream.
That He rose from the dead
after the carmine dogwood
petals bled... is like a dream –
when broken Magdalen beheld
Him, held Him tight
as she lay, hid by night
stone still, in sleep – felled
by the noon nightmare upon the hill.
It is a mystery
too deep for Hobo, or for me.
Jesus submitted to the Father’s will –
not on Golgotha, but with every beat
of that red pulsing wheel
of Ocean River (waxy seal
for human honeycomb – complete
sweet sign of infinite benevolence).
My yellowing maroon
& off-white leaf-pontoon...
my Hobo raft snaking past violence,
my dogwood octagon, shaved off
by Time into a simple
convex fish-vessel...
my melting hexagon, snow-staff
*
of almond blooms, shading a well
in Palestine... stone skiff
leaping Gennesaret – if
only all these metaphors knot in one spell!
The spiral of a fingerprint
in limestone sea-cave
might unfurl a concave
hour-glass – etch kind intent
in pregnant sheets aslant the wind.
Each step taken, each
wave-slap on the beach
will glance to faceted perfection – find
ripe summa in a planetary plan;
the ants have theirs, Hobo
his role to play – go
find her, who unveils the sun of Man!
Magnanimous dome (Emanu-el’s)
on Morris Avenue,
your turtleshell (blue
arc of sky over her Book of Kells)
circumferences a shady tree
of leafy ladders (Jacob’s,
Jonah’s... Honest Abe’s).
We climb together, you & me,
through thunderclouds of poetry –
counting the heartbeats
as we rise... fleets
thread the Gate, to open sea.
7.10.17
