through Narragansett smokehole

AGATE LAMP

A peaceful evening in late April

the trees barely budding

in mild light   while brooding

darkness rings   the besieged people

& this dissonance of visible   invisible

an indivisible fire   smoldering

criminals & saints   revealing

callous inhumanity    with humble

solidarity   courageous   all-compassionate

& in my flimsy gazebo

octagonal coracle or   Argo

with Sophie’s wind-chime   over the gate

delicate oak-leaf butter-knife design

tingling in the calm air   O

here in my Ariadne-lair   where

a Chartres J coils  toward her Eschaton

& my whisper follows Cautantowwit

through Narragansett smokehole 

southwest, southwest   while a soul-

hart sails back   to her monarch nest –

that circling square dance of Ocean beams

where the spirit of Jessie Ophelia

& Juliet Ravlin   abide in Thee   &

Eternity, O Eternity! cries Roger Williams

& you lift your agate lamp, Psyche

like a fiddlehead   in Holy-Land

& the soeur-coulombe of the Son

of Man   swerves   with a shining eye

4.27.20

mountain crossroad

HIGH JUBILEE

As the flashy plumage of the peacocks

contrasts with the somber wall

of a hunchbacked cathedral… so

the worldly chit-chat of the literati mocks

the stark lofty simplicity

of a mountain crossroad –

where a mule bites goad

with gritted teeth (stubborn humility).

& I think of those high stony passes

of Armenia tonight

as I foot my way, right

back to bright horseplay of Itasca

primavera springs.  Up there, young

Ojibwe (generation after

generation) took the fast

of separation from the world (a brave-sprung

discipline) – & he awoke & found it truth.

So (as I inch toward the close

of my rheumy, 8-years’

rêve-glose) I want to emulate that youth

& drink the clear spring water, sing my fast

manifest the rabbit frame

these longish footprints form…

untwist my Huckleberry ruse at last.

Tell me what is a human soul & spirit

& you will say what I mean.

What they have always been –

a knot of everlasting life, the whit-

                  *

sun wedding of the nodding twain.

Theseus, Ariadne… Adam,

Eve… – til Jesus came

& lifted every limb to Paradise (again).

All’s figures.  Here’s a 4-leaf clover;

twirl it between your fingers.

See where Hobo lingers,

lost in his maze… only a cavernous nave

overhead (synagogue of Always-There).

Can you conceptualize

the structure of the Bible?  Is

your mind glazed yet, by the seven spare

sparks of Pentecost?  Has the Spirit

settled upon you as a dove

& vaulted you to eaves of love?

This is the salt that fires each aspirant

& burns away the dross around the urn –

kindling Dante, Roger Williams –

forging those adamant amalgams

melding heaven-earth, sacred-profane…

prophetic copper work of Providence.

For the covenant of God

with Man is happy seed-

grain of the common good – equivalence

of Golden Rule & last commitment;

liberty from tyranny

is predicated on glory… high

Jubilee of restoration (in a dreamer’s tent).

4.24.20

whispering the news

NESTED BRANCHES

When the Eternal comes, says the Rabbi,

& what does he mean?

May be the Ghost behind the scene;

the tear with grain of Ocean in your eye.

The truth is whole, the truth is one –

& what does this mean?

That Love’s criterion

is rectitude, in every human situation.

Gumilev, that Petersburg poet,

called it chaste vision –

welded like dew at dawn

to blades of grass, the spark of holy Paraclete.

The infant acorn was King of the Wood.

The leaves bent, whispering the news

through Ariadne’s arbor… (hers

the thread – her nested branches overhead).

The Rabbi is a child of God!

cried Mary Magdalen.

He dies on this occasion

since he bears the prophet’s spiral rod

twirling from heaven as from nothingness.

His smile defies your gravitation;

he will come again

after three days of stony sleepiness

like Jonah sprang from salty Milky Way;

the rule of theft & violence,

of Minotaur’s demonic fraudulence

is coming to an end.  Truth shines like day.

4.2.20

to look fear in the face

ROSE BATEAU

March trudges wearily this year

toward April.  The robins

tremolo their violins

with plaintive warbling.  The end is near

for many.  Gaunt doctors, nurses

wait upon the Emperor…

his unrelenting petty terror

carts off families in makeshift hearses.

Now courage & compassion race ahead

to look fear in the face –

offer to stand in place

for fainting visitants, among the dead.

Is life a dream, or mere nightmare?

Behold her profile, bent

over the bed… his silent

fellowship… the grieving watch they share

with every tremulous shocked sufferer

(who must foresee the end

as lungs contract… distend).

Is life a dream?  We wonder, wonder.

I see a silent servant of servants,

across whose labors galaxies

& all their glory graze

in circles (up above our sacraments

& merry games).  I see her figure

shine like sunlight on brown river;

glance at Rabbi Live-Forever;

smile from rose bateau (Dream-Builder).

3.30.20

the continuum of life (i.m. Margaret Treuer)

MORNING STAR

                             i.m. Margaret Seelye Treuer

There is the fabric of the poem & there is

the continuum of life

as with Ojibwe mother & wife

& federal magistrate Margaret Treuer, otherwise

Giiwedinookwe (North Wind Woman) –

first American Indian

female judge in the country

(requiescat in pace, strong dancing one).

& I can’t always mesh the two threads

right – in poem, & with life

with my dull carving knife

rough-shaping sets of Minny-figureheads

for meanings I can’t quite project.

& in a one-room cabin she

grew up, ambitious to be

of service from the start – & heck,

she married a refugee from Nazi Germany

– Scattergood while you can

laboring man, & chairwoman

in labor.  Adamant to bring out of many

threads, & ivory husks of sister birch

one floatable resilient bark

or local replica of Ark…

wild rising, riding on waters of Ur-church

or paddling Churnagogue… to lift

the mournful tapestry

from scorn & travesty

to something like the glowing starry gift

                   *

it was meant to be, in the beginning

& she loved her Native ways

served as mentor & guide

teaching her children how to rice & sing

& hunt, tap maple, living off the land.

I was searching for a figure

like Pocahontas, Morning Star

stepping up to dance out of Gravesend

someone like starry Virgo or Corn Mother

to represent (in my rough-

sketchy way) just enough

for my own District of Columbia (another,

older coulombe, a deeper-down coo-coo). 

& as le printemps approaches

& spring tiptoes on lady’s

slippers through the forest, & you

sense the great symphony slowly expand

& breathe, toward end of May

a chord of Restoration Day

sounds in my heart & over the land –

when a glossolalia of babbling Pentecost

races glittering across

the coppery brook, & as

we rise in spirit toward that almost

ineffable perfection of the Everlasting

Thunder-life… we sing

of grace & thanks-giving;

our maypole wisdom-song we bring.

3.21.20

the water-works in New Orleans

CROW-TRACKS

Old Hobo by the river again,

old mule, old Lear, old man.

Ponders the coiled span,

the tension in the plot called Heaven

Versus America.  Indifferent violence,

violent indifference...

What took you into silence,

Julie, at your blossoming – hence

into the shark’s eye of the Bay.

Like an arching jaguar-lunge

of International Orange

claw-marked with irreversible tragedy

your Bridge – hypnotic Taj Mahal

whose lambent shadow hums

of nut-brown kingdoms,

steep ravines for Solomon, Sheba...

The span tracks a continuum

he scans with tentative

crow-tracks.  To live

or die.  From the will’s ultimatum

of despair, your cul-de-sac of self-

slaughter – to the other pole

of faith, serene & whole;

with Stravinsky’s branded Sylph

leaping her epileptic scapegoat pyre

(in Paris, on May 29th)

– O Juliet, my May-month

sister-dove!... my black North Star

       *

– his limping meditation takes him far

upstream, & down.  The dream-

songe, rivery-rêve, beams

her constancy, an equilibrium (wave-mère).

Her source, an Okean of galaxies,

a murmuring Milky Way –

your sempiternal Day

that never dies, your tree of many Jessies...

open your eyes, Hobo, & see!

This kingdom of canoeing

almonds pours – outpacing

Death with fins of Galilee-Ferrari!

Her mickle water-sprite keeps murmuring

like your sibling ghost,

shady elfin host

who climbs from a mandorla, humming

beside you (ahead of you, within you);

& like Latrobe the architect

following his own son to inspect

the water-works in New Orleans, renew

yourself – restore yourself, American! –

in that strange French-Spanish-

Cherokee dreamland.  Swish

go the eucalypus paddles... the plan

of Heaven is a restoration, so –

not slavery, but liberty –

your soul’s birthday.

Love Kingdom’s galaxies begin to glow.

6.24.19