HOBO-MAP
The calm oval of the bridge
floats in the stream
like bubble on a beam.
A fringe of green trees edge
the shoreline... memory of summer.
Water seeks its own
level. Every stone
melts in its riverbed. Your humor,
Hobo, settles into Ocean State
as silky Mississippi
seeps into the mighty
estuary of the Gulf (trompette
marine). So your melodious
escapism is salted too,
with fire – there ain’t no
place that doesn’t see you, Mose.
Cradle him in your coracle
of creamy wisdom, Sophie –
let light from a tree
of galaxies be his menorah (Huck,
that is – Huck Finn). Your soaring
arc (beside Cahokia)
hovers, a stealth utopia –
eagle-prong, heat-seeking
beak from heaven. Like that rapt
golden raptor, diving
on rainbow wing
toward his vanishing point
*
(infinity) which Joachim (mulish
Franciscan hermit)
signed, Age of the Spirit...
Fusion of molten phoenix, starfish
turtledove... risen to dance
lightfooted on the grave
of death (one palm-wave
soothes her brow-circumference).
Only leave him his primitive wood-burnt
etching from Rhode Island.
Someone might understand
its clambit rhythm somehow – learnt
by beachcomber, drifted to sound
of sea-wash... steady laving
for pain... life-saving
Island Rose (from rocky ground).
The Word sings out of rosy shell chambers,
complex inflected folds,
ineffable. She breaks molds
by clash of scalloping tambours –
beams smiling splendor in a glance;
beholds the Earth, clipped
into chains, gripped
by small potentates (from Bossy Manse)...
My hobo-map of Paradise
includes Newport (Jackie
& Jack wed, merrily);
my restoration will abolish dice.
11.6.17
