cloud & catalpa, Minneapolis

Cloud & Catalpa, Minneapolis (Martin Johnson Heade, 2019)

GRASS CLOVERLEAF

Everything grew simpler in that high room

overlooking Jerusalem

when he added up the sum

& gave us his Thanksgiving poem.

The apostolic laying on of hands

was just an afterthought

Mary Magdalen taught

to keep the Presence each one understands.

The knot held.  The silverweb

floresced, in centaur arrow-

shots – from Antioch to

Thebes, up to remotest Gad-Gab

(Ethiopia).  Axled on coffin

of coffins.  Buried deep

as Noah’s ark.  Sleep,

King of Kings (like everything human).

This gemstone of the Southern Cross

shines like diamond

out of emerald

almond – mossy quaternion, grass

cloverleaf (in shape of heart).

That little tree will root

where all the branches start,

where all the rivers roll (sky-girt

perpendicular – little Everytwig

leaning against current)

– unto that iron agent

sluicing the Delta to a brazen fig

                    *

shriveled, dry (as is the way with figs).

Yet Wisdom is justified

in all her children.  Hide

now, O Man – Ouragan digs

into clay.  Rotating so solemnly,

she shakes the bone-limbs

from their joints, skims

lightly over coastal property

– only to uproot, destroy.  Bideth

nor roof nor door, Tornado!

Like the Iron Age you know

twisted to shattering shadow... Lilith-

Crocodile, climbing from Delta

to muddy matrix of 

St. Louis.  Scorned Love

twisted into dust-mandala –

substantial b-flat of the galaxies

stilled, played in reverse.

The little tree of Ursus

Minor – little star, catalpa’s

iris-blooms – starts wheeling

counter-clockwise.  Clover

culminates your

integral almond-canoe.  Sing,

Muse, Oblomov-grail of prairie earth!

The great wheel turns.

Jonah’s corn-maze yearns

Restoration... (Miriam’s rebirth).

6.28.19

Icon Man

Note to reader : some of these poems are pretty darn obscure.  If you peruse this blog's web version (as opposed to mobile-phone version), you will find links, at the bottom of the page, to subject entries (labels) - which might be helpful in tracking down my footprints, or other footprints.  This holds true for all the Ravenna Diagram posts on this here blog.

MOSAIC SHEPHERD

The knot in the heart is a universal

wedding ring, wherever

you are.  Heavier

than iron, ce diamant mondial

de l’amande.  Bright orange lozenge-

mandorla, shedding leaves

of tears – vicarious

miniature trees (strange

fruit).  Like the shady crossroads

with the Dead End sign –

a little Chinese lantern

(glass by LaFarge).  Six nodes

in one honeycomb eye – melodious

riddle of light & shade.

Henry & John, a cannonade

off Sydney Harbor... looming ficus

guarding Southern Cross.  They sought

a figure for relief –

hoopoe... cloverleaf...

barely-veiled grief.  Stray mote

of dark December.  Henry looks up

through rose window.

A rim around the chi-rho,

hint of shining salt.  Red stop

sign on the dynamo, outlined

in cedar-glow (Mosaic

Shepherd Stands in Lake).

What the heart seek she shall find.

4.5.16

Observatory Hill

TAPROOT

Observatory Hill, atop the crest

of Sydney Harbor – guarded

by phalanx of great-aged,

magnanimous fig trees – like a nest

for visionary eagles – keeps a lens

trained on stars down

under (twinkling diamond

octahedron, Southern Cross).

Yet here, in a nearby yard, one pine

soars higher than those figs,

flings moth-wide wings –

lime branches drooping like a pinecone

honeycomb – leans into evening

at acute angle (a golden

mean).  Jack’s cheekbones

were so sharp – as that pining

Rail-splitter’s, in the cracked-plate

portrait – like the pyx

flung aloft by priest

or angler’s scale-scorèd blade –

the vertical taproot must plunge deep.

Against sandstorm &

flood, the blistering worm,

a maze of chains... rusted keep

of treason’s rigor mortis – fatal

spire of PX’ed Magdalen.

Where buffalo pern

to droughtland hollow (fetal, natal).

9.20.15

The "cracked-plate portrait", by Alexander Gardner