SAY HELLO
End of summer sounds. A surf
of crickets & cicadas
swells into the branches.
Phantom cottonwoods (leaf-
hearts pale yellow, dried-out husks).
Anemic light, grown timid
spooked by swollen shade –
August forecast (autumn dusk).
Henry attends to his North Star,
his Union under onion
dome... tending toward ruin
now. Anger drives the darkness car.
Sleek starlings yoked in harnesses.
Electronic neon
beckoning Power’s iron
catalogs (bright pigeonhole affinities).
He stands by the teeth of St. Anthony
Falls – a Berryman
apparition, a ghastly John
lingering by fish-scale cutlery
(zombie ice-fishing is reviving
local watering holes,
say Twin Cities
polls). Barely surviving
in professional cinch, Polaris
remains fixed in place –
kingfisher Falcon-Ace
tweaked by that wench in Paris
*
out of all shape, except a heart-
scarred origami –
Guillaume or Alexei
dovetailing it to Jordan-sprite.
So helpless Noah watches his waters
subside. He turn to Hobo –
Hobo turn to her. So
child become grain – grain gathers
to child. On the scandalous retina
of Mary Magdalen,
the Earth rewinds again
as Man – wrath spun to mattina.
I have no rage. The otherness
of your... your mother-smile.
He lay for a while
on sands of Jordan wilderness,
at peace. Your American motherland
is an adamant green
Everywhere. A limestone
welcome-mat (with waves of eye-in-hand).
It was here before we all arrived;
it was not to be won quite yet
by war, but by legitimate
befriending – loving everything that lived.
& only a bum in San Francisco
or homeless reprobate
treated like jail-bait
knows Charity enough to say hello
& happy lovey-dovey Thanksgiving to you
8.22.18
