emblems of endurance

EARTH SPIRALS

The words are worn & second-hand

because they came to you

from what came before you.

Peaceful silence of that early land.

Spring meadow, showered with gemstones

glinting in the Joe-Pye weed.

Her breathing warmth, your need

to hold.  Her smile, tickling your bones.

What I wanted to say, could I put it in words

seraphic Maximus might get?

Leaning no-handed on his parapet –

a prisoner (two mourning doves his birds

of paradise, his golden fleece, his dream).

Our tacit sense of truth

sleepwalks, like gentle Ruth

into her waking world.  Like a clear stream

running over red-brown clay, where scattered

agates gleam… moss-rose earth spirals

guide us to Gateway walls –

Itasca springs of earliness.  Of all that mattered.

The throne, the chair of adamant obsidian.

Her maze of Mexican onyx.

Coatlicue’s fire-tempered bricks

of wrath & fortitude… that perihelion

of burning sun, her purifying kiln.

These emblems of endurance

frame a turtleshell dance,

absorbing pain – her sweat-salt will.

4.9.20

at the close of a year

JOVIAL STAR

The weathered flesh-tones of the Franklin Bridge

her twin brows arched with wonder

in the imperturbable splendor

of the winter sun.  You give me courage.

Not the one or the other, only

but the concord of the two

in three.  What ravels you

& me – kindling of Dove, or Bee.

Sophie brought me a handful of shells

& an acorn, from Rhode Island.

A child’s gift, out of sand –

at the year’s end, from sea-swells.

& it came to me, at the close of a year

that Earth itself is the ball of clay.

Your mother’s wheel, for a day

& a night... Time unfolding, free & clear.

That fortitude of Roger, in his Providence

was planted by one adamant law –

the human well of love & awe,

the infinite heart, your recompense.

The jovial star beams on its balance-point.

The sense of rightness Osip felt

comes like your sister-dove; eyes melt

frost with twin rays of hearth-fire.  Scent

of your presence, walking beside me, Hobo

intuits, hearkens, turns –

out of these graven Grecian urns

quick water voices, chorusing.  Lamps, glow.

12.31.19