Advent Found Poem (found just now)

     UNEXPECTED LIGHT

       courtesy of Dennis Overbye & NY Times (12.8.20)

Slight threads of Agnes Martin

touch their way across a night sea.

The universe is a shade too bright.

…more very faint galaxies or star clusters

     contributing to the background light.

The most likely explanation, he said…

    a less exciting possibility… “we messed up

    and missed a light source or camera

    artifact that we should have figured out.

    This is what I worry about the most.”

But how dark is dark? …the measurement

    had a 5 percent chance of being a fluke.

       “Your distant neighbor eating leftover turkey

    at three in the morning is not going to

    wake you up at night from the glare.”

A leafless oak with its arms thrown out

like a knot of knots in the arctic wind

– thin memory of warmth (hearth,

heartbeat).  Presumably, in an infinite

    static universe, every line of sight

        ends at a star, so shouldn’t the sky appear

    as bright as the sun?  But astronomers

    now know… But how dark is dark?

        2 sigma – far cry from gold standard

    for discovery of 5 sigma… zoomed past

Arrokoth, formerly Ultima Thule

(7.14.2015).  We imagine a manger

in drear December.  One ox-eyed

bare exile, burbling in a steaming barn

beneath caved-in roof… placid beasts, 

primitive smiles.  In the Darkness

    of Empty Space, Unexpected Light.

From the human heart steps the King

    of Fools… now her serene lowliness

nurses the Emperor of Poverty in peace.

         12.10.20

irrational Archimedean constant

APPLE PIE

On the cusp of another Ides of March

plague wracks the Republic.

Snubbing his soothsayers, slick

Julius the 4th tees off a crumbling arch.

Henry Hollow glimpses Fenris in the mirror

coyotes laughing in the doorway

the delicate gyroscopic orrery

of light & dark about to shatter –

shards of church & state, the glare

of Lucifer the puppet-master

dark Leviathan off-shore

a wilderness of the sea (whale Jonah’s lair).

But it shall not be so with thee,

you murmur to me…

                O

irrational Archimedean constant

transcendental root of unity.

Mild logos of a fisherman, a Fisher

King, fish-man… your hook

one Magdalenian smile – her look

from nocturne-cave of milky… where?

Before the granary-empire, before

domestication of the slave –

beyond star-winking nave

or curve of Galla crypt (Ravenna lore);

the ratio of infinite circumference

to one straight line.

Guillaume’s trompette marine.

Thanksgiving apple pie (in Providence).

3.14.20

up in Montrose Park

PINE-SMOKES

The war to end all wars was done.

On May 29th, 1919

Sir Arthur Eddington

tested heavy light, suspended

in a thread around the moon-black sun;

so gravity bent clay

toward refining accuracy.

Black Elk extends to six directions

silent gratitude & recognition,

just as an icon speaks

in speechless pine-smokes

or a painting glows with valedictory

emotion.  Around the summer solstice

rose-phosphorus sunset

seals the monuments’ regret

in Washington – western promise

magnifies & coalesces, in a microcosm

(up in Montrose Park,

at Avon Place, by River R).

That armillary zodiac, or star-prism

revealing violence, imperial dominance

(diagonal to its redeeming

countersign) – entangling

mn-mutter, amid all circumstance…

sweet Angel, levitant above the cancer

of the Capital; fleet-

footed Evening Star, bright

Pocahontas (waterlogged Delta, triangular).

2.24.20

love is a subtle mode of gravity

PEACEABLE REPLY

Love?  Love is a subtle mode

of gravity, persuading

everything into its ring

via reverse-magnetic motherlode.

Implicit ground of adoration –

centered in that other

sprouting up like heather,

unaccountable (& yet akin).

The Petersburg raznochinets

who wrote, maybe

we are Hagia Sophia

with a million eyes… completes

that Galilean one, who said

you are light of the world

& so like sheep into fold

he goes, smiling into Ya-Neku.

So like that sonorous Adagio

building gradually upward

on frail threads, the sad

clown walks into her thundercloud

shadow.  Like Mary Magdalen

she follows the mild voice

of one who mediates

all force with dove-modulation –

her cooing sing-song tilt of wing-

span balancing the red

& blue with a rusty rod

of iron – his wand out of Sing-

                   *

Sing, his foot-pedal, bruised purple

as small Rhode Island

violet (one grain in hand

touching the resonant key of small people).

She bears the crux of all martyrdom

across the political spectrum

like Mater Dolorosa on some

Syrian plateau of desolate Rom;

yet every child’s candle flickers yet

on the anniversary of statehood

& Providence, in the law-code

charted for Restoration Day (kismet).

When Rome fell, & sheep scattered

into milky constellations,

whirling light-grains

penetrating countless catastrophic

neighborhoods of pitch-black space.

In the darkest of Dark Ages

the ratio on parched pages

scratched by severed stump of Maximus

shone like Einstein intuition –

Man is imago of your Divine

infinite plenitude… sign

lofted into deepest void-perdition;

there is no sovereignty like this.

To be the peaceable reply

to every trumped-up tyranny –

we all God’s children, sang the Empress.

2.20.20

like a small town playground

LIGHT GOLD

The restoration of all things…

what’s it about this phrase

corrals my shifty gaze?

Some infant stimulus it brings?

As at the source of vast rivers

(Mississippi, Danube)

a baby spring’s hubbub

purls out of ground… shimmers

in bitter February air & light.

The restoration of a truth

too plain, too clear, to booth

as Peter would (its glare so bright).

Universal constant, Einstein’s measure;

flexible cinch-thread

of muttering light gold

sent to bind man, through rose embrasure.

Power’s byzantine – but truth Franciscan.

Peaceable polity

is founded in equality

chaste as a child’s eye (Petersburgian).

The restoration of the human world

is like a small town playground,

where the rusty sound

of an ancient iron swing is curled

within your inner ear.  You heard it

years ago, once… now,

again.  No one knows how

the goldfinch’s tricolor obsignat.

2.16.20

at the end of summa

SURSUM CORDA

These heart-shaped leaves of the cottonwood –

yellow-black memories,

your excavated face

from the dark archive of branded blood.

Leavings from an old mosaic, my Psyche;

yearnings you magnetized

like a Tombs Angel surprised

me from despair – desire molting to fiery

grace.  Loose, unloose these cords,

sister Cordelia –

churnagogue Jonah,

heart’s winepress of happy candle-words.

I hear hands clap together

this little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine...

through the funhouse mirror

mend you ways, O Minotaur

sacre du printemps

bête pour FIN DU TEMPS

so you may stand with sisters

brothers   in the great congregation

at the end of summa

when the threads draw

taut (1132)   Rabbi, Rab Ravelin

sursum corda   my clay Columbia

as out of the flaming kiln

the milky waters spill

& your glad-sparrow brother sighs   selah

9.18.19

glare attracts birds

MIGRANT ZONE

      “But,” she added, “a tribute that kills thousands of birds?  Is that really 

                what we want?” – NY Times, 9.11.19

Little Alex was in love with them.

Would run out to the “woody

area” (floored with heavy

twisted vines) & note their thrum

of peregrine wing-calls; run back, report.

He was 20 when the Towers

fell.  Now he’s in the painters’

guild – swings from scaffolds out

in Portland (surfaced a new public school

this summer).  Everyone

knows someone so, dangling on

the perimeter of gravity (lead’s rule).

Edgar Brightman says, each body

is an etching of God’s mind –

that Personage who’s fond

of persons that we are (might be).

It is some Berryman-Osiris dream

of emerald Ireland, or

Mannahatta... out of mire-

bleared violets, one twin-beam

(ineffable, 4 miles up into night).

The glare attracts birds

(like glamorous words

of bright adhesive poem).  Raven, kite...

– bad omens, harnessed by our own

self-heightening memorials.

Yet... all my trials,

Lord.  DOVE LIBERATES LOVE’S MIGRANT ZONE.

9.11.19

New York Times, 9.11.19

golden lanterns of Osiris

BREAD-BOAT

May Day.  The ancient wheel of the earth

lifted on a pole of flowers

by a ring of skipping circlers

wearing flower-circlets.  Distant mirth-

song, childhood in Mendelssohn.

Light primordial.

From before the murky Nile-

punts, beneath waves of Heracleion;

older than those golden lanterns

of Osiris, Ezra

beaming from the deep your

imperial star-bar patterns.

Yet the axial pivot is not a dazzling pillar

but an imperturbable muddy

river, rolled into clay

by palms of your servant, Hathor;

into a ring or a bowl of Providence,

a lowly bread-boat

for carrying each soul-mote

out of its nightmare toward deliverance.

The soul is humbled by redemption

undeserved.  Not light

of brazen copper, but of heart

that passeth understanding, O my son.

Light from before all things, who smiles

into blue depths of rosmarine;

who leaps to Galilean

shore, sings out, & hoists the sails.

5.1.19

you seek your inner Notre Dame

LUMBERING FLIGHT

This April sunset behind the trees,

like a rose & phosphorescent

robin’s egg.  Fundament

of natural radiance; architectural breeze.

On Île-de-France, in the river Seine

a throng of men & women

flung boulders toward heaven –

to celebrate the feast of their communion

& the miraculous feat of that

lumbering flight.  The chill

granite yawn in the hill

where the dead man lay (requiescat)

like a counterweight to their primordial

joy – its hollow barrow

(familiar dank & narrow

room) will serve as reconciling grail

when we have gathered for the wedding

in the flowery vale of Cana,

& amid the hubbub-haha

Mary murmurs – Now, my son, bring

out the wine...  We will not build

another Notre Dame.

& yet our rivers are the same.

The Rio del Espiritu Santo is filled

with rosmarine passion of light –

invisible, unchanging,

radiant, enlightening

fiery indomitable apex bright.

4.22.19

to restore a soul

SECRET WORLD

To restore a soul, to mend a broken heart

out of the wells of memory

for relief of misery

for your grace we pray.  A crane bone flute

keening her lonely call might still redeem

the wind that carries it

on the storm-clouds.  Fiat

lux – though the darkness loom.

This primitive wooden Vierge Ouvrante

unveils her secret world

with a copper hinge.  Old

masters of le Verbe significant

carved, flickered into form

a buoyant microcosm

within her oaken beam –

a human shelter from the storm.

Cicadas buzz amid burnt branches

of a poem framing history.

It is a mystery.

Isis on her throne, Ariadne’s hunches,

spider-Minotaur in his plangent web...

the sacrifice of innocence

behind a screen (some dense

thicket of Pig’s Eye Social Club).

The wind is clear & clean tonight.

Whole homesteads rise

toward ordinary Paradise,

warm lips forging a female Paraclete.

1.16.19

petit songe du solstice

MASS PLANTING

The soaring voices of the Rose Ensemble

filled the cavernous wooden vault

of St. Mary’s with green light

on solstice night.  Meek humble

faces in a crowd become limestone

architecture of high song –

a van der Weyden throng,

a Bruegel mass planting a cornerstone.

When the tender light falls first

& softly on the muddy fringe

of some new edifice... strange

dewy glinting, where the stone burst

from whale-mouth of the earth

(Jonah-Persephone’s deep

crypt, where ages keep)

with fluttery breath of infant birth.

Jonah... Osiris... buried Man...

little Nutcracker King

solving his Sphinx thing,

finally.  Sibylline Isis (Belgian)

murmuring – I am that which was

& is & ever shall be;

no mortal has ever

lifted the veil which covers me.  Cuz,

tell Henry : Rex Pacificus

has found his mate

beyond the Golden Gate –

Magdalen, her gardener (Jesus).

12.22.18

golden autumn of the codgers

CHASTE EQUALITY

A synthesis of reality

is the poet’s quarry –

the whole serene array

sweeping like wind over the sea.

Not that irritable reaching

after fact & reason

but a subtler conviction –

life’s laughing dolphin, breaching.

So lips’ continuum of air

sustains your sea-sounding,

reverberates in rounding

surf (os-scintillating there).

The light stems from another realm.

A gravity so dense

you’re pulled beyond sense

to transcend...  Owlish Athena’s helm

shines like an emerald acorn cap

out from that wilderness

of native lovingkindness

(Williams’ mayday just a maple tap).

The Ocean State is what we seek.

The Providence of Roger-

Seeker... golden codger

settled in his freedom, meek

and bold.  Like admirable Edward

Coke, who founded

justice vs. his confounded

king – a chaste equality (rood-hoard).

11.1.18

not kingly oak

SPRY LIMBS

Not kingly oak, nor prescient almond...

just some pale cottonwood.

Moon milky-green, for good

measure.  Shedding vagabond

fluffballs – like poetry, or

cotton boles – bales

for Memphis, N’Orleans...

spry limbs bent into hangin’ tree.

I go into jags & eddies, dried

pemmican.  Downstream

from vinegar dream-

sponge (where the Bre’r-man died).

If the Word were truly a fluffball of light

I would be acorn coracle

green mote on miracle

worker spinal curvature (bent wight).

It gleams through red Pipestone

peacepipe – an emerald

happiness, turned gold

as sunshine.  Welcome, Everyone!

Translucent presence of a place

for you, before all places

cling to timespaces...

a nest for omnipresent Falcon-Ace.

Benevolent breeze, that moves these leaves

to waver into swing-time

antimatter – chime

morning with Hope (sings in the sheaves).

6.6.18

a little air

ALMOND MEAL

A little air, a melody

out of Mendelssohn, maybe –

like a wisp of smoke you see

afloat above Red Wing one day.

Like pipes out of Apollinaire,

trompette marine – sole

zigzag rigmarole

of an enigma (serpent’s lair).

You walk the blank maze, Oedipus.

With ghost of Ariadne

by your side.  Keen

pal, forsaken thesis – surplus

collateral, original

betrayal.  Henry Adam’s

dusky twilight madam’s

mad, quiet... a virgin owl

nested in stone Columbia.

Only her bird’s eye

as the crow flies

correlates phantasmagoria

out of the desperate heart of Cain

into clay valves

where muddy stars revolve;

through the dawn labyrinth again

from light, toward light, with light

blazing mild power –

like some firefly bower

mowers glimpse of a summer night

                  *

beneath remote aurora-shower

bearing fathomless delight

miraculous & right

to chastened human hearts in flower.

So I behold Dante & Job,

David the King,

hedged by ironic ring

of instinctual violence – the mob

of envious, avaricious rivals

circling their prey

to make King for a Day

once more.  Florentine hovels

I see transposed to Catlin prairie,

vertiginous Beatrice

mingled with Platte clay.

To the horizon’s elegant Bluejay

molts saturnine Cawtantowwit

with amorous Jenny-

Jonah; they buried be

only to soar in monarch-flight

O harbingers of Milky Way

whose kingdom is an Ocean

Stream – salty communion,

sea-green flock of Liberté!

Out from the massive turning of the wheel,

where Miriam churns the cream

of every starfish dream

into her almond meal (Messiah-seal).

5.16.17

from Agate Rock

WHITMAN BREEZE

A pink drift of crabapple petals

lights the rust-brown bricks.

Hobo sniffs lilacs

through your gazebo’s flimsy walls

of ragged cedar.  Transparent air

& Saturday quiet;

a tiny spider’s lucid net

shines like platinum from here to there.

His soul’s invisible as God.

His heart beats slowly.

Time in the Family

of Man sways over Land of Nod.

His hammock is a green hummock

where hummingbirds & robins

warble, strum... Someone’s

calling you, Hobo (from Agate Rock).

You loved the looming sweep of limbs,

the creaky oaks in autumn

storms... quick, winter’s come.

The columbarium of paper hymns,

a windy wasp’s nest in your heart,

the melancholia

of sentimental sigh,

chilly memorial... you play the part,

poet.  These lilacs will not last.

Odysseus, in the Sirens’

grip, resists – sharpens

his ears – clings to the swaying mast

                  *

shuts eyes against his blinded sense.

Light tiptoes through, at last.

The shrouded cosmos (vast,

remote) circles a pilot’s evidence;

the pole star of his meditation

lifts into incarnation

(ark of a nation

anchored to her own grave station).

So Hobo’s apple petals scatter

in a spring chaos.

The Minotaur lurks close.

Greed splits matter from anti-matter,

rigid red from angry blue.

These violet bowers

dangling sweet flowers

bend over you in vain, Hobo.

Your dark twin leans from Golden Gate.

Her black hair beckons toward

the deep.  Only my Word

is closer to your heart, shipmate –

your heart, & hers.  A violent order

is a knot of pain, a riddle

of ingratitude.  They fiddle

while my planet burns, smolder

in contemptuous hate (for neighbors

not their enemies).

Mauve Whitman breeze...

salt loveliness of tide’s martyrs.

5.13.17