How to be God's friend?

JUST BEYOND

The lifesaver : a fruity ring

invented by Hart Crane’s

father.  Across the plains

yawing wind-wagons roll.  Something

akin to Grant Wood corn, maybe –

an icon.  All’s figures,

counsels holy Zero

Summer.... Burchfield parody

(complete with feverish Light-

in-Gale).  Deep swampland

heartland, over sand-

fly latitudes.  God’s outa sight;

Dad’s a kind of Kingfish, generous

in all the wrong ways.

Those were the dog days.

Rain... unlikely hymn (so mysterious) –

another author, just beyond the pale.

Moses climbs from his dinghy

ready to shake that thingy –

waterspew from Rock (a Word, set sail).

How to be God’s friend? ask

the Friends.  Williams hectored,

but he left on record

how to walk humbly (high shellfish task)...

Friends gathered in a Rhody cave.

Silence is best response

to Charlie’s dalliance.

Our Author is a friendship trope – to save,

not to condemn.

5.8.18

What cheer, Netop?

WESTERN STAR

Words gather round you, little tree

of Providence – little pine

of memory, blue-green

as the sea.  An Itasca task for me,

to reckon the source of poetry –

freshwater Ocean State

from a spring so shy, so late!

– in the heart of Hobo’s Mississippi.

Like a calm symmetry between

twin Mirror Lakes... maize

mazes, where she stakes

me down (tied at the bow to green

apple root)... under the granite gate

at Prospect Terrace – Roger’s

benevolent dream-sponge,

soaking up querulous fear & hate

& wringing them out upon a font

of Narragansett friendship.

What cheer, Netop?

hails the raven-tested testament

of human fellowship – fond canoe

of rational amphibian,

this turtledove Leviathan

who swallows all to bear Jonah anew.

Buoyant almond of my soul... you are

that copper-penny Liberty

harboring everyone for free –

between Caesar & God, one Western Star.

9.8.17