on long feet

LIGHT RABBI

Calm evening at the end of April.

Wisdom of the ancients –

unity of changing constants.

A continuum… a synthesis… a will

to find a meaning in the whole;

a portion of instinctive

gratitude – the urge to live

unfolding origami in the soul.

We dwell beneath an aegis of benevolent ideas

like clouds (reflecting sunlight,

bringing rain).  & everything

will be all right, my father said – his palm

over my flooding eyes.  This the providence

of sparrows & tall kings –

of all those feathered things

that soar so bravely into turbulence.

So then… who’s your imaginary friend,

Henry?  That loony Hobo

drifting from his local slough

down to the Gulf of Mexico?  Just a bend

in the river?  See thou, Hart says

– touches a key, perhaps.

After the world-collapse

he’ll still be burbling his sabbath-sense;

planting a tender middle C

between Ocean & me

where clay & sea

are cleft at last, to rescue Thee 

                *

– the clé to my ecclesia, Julie – 

a soft glissando pour l’église

from San Francisco to Louise

(grey Dolphy surfacing beside me).

& if reality is simply a supremely poetic idea

then the Imago of images

is like a seed of peacefulness –

a still point (painted on a bowl in Cahokia)

or that eye-in-hand Hobo held out to me

the wad of river-mud

Rabbi patterns for the blind

saying, Ephphatha… (gently, gently).

Everything has already been redeemed

& an orb rests in Hobo’s eye

with dewfall of memory

& earth-pangs for the not-yet-dreamed.

Everything rising with the soeur-coulombe

the sister-dove, the Jonah-Joan

the twin, O my beloved one

light Rabbi hopping through the gloom

on long feet   heading for the nest

on crest of wave

that vertical canoe-nave

pronged   at heart of Southern Cross

6 tracks of Black Elk diamond

ghost dance of Rio del

Espiritu   sprung up

for you & me   out of dis April pond

4.30.20

by John Gould's oak

ANCIENT MELODY

The air so clear, & the evening moon

a bright silver penny

as in the children’s story

walking along my mother’s old lane

(River Road).  Looking back through time

toward rust-bronze Penny

glinting in the well… you & me,

sweet riverbend friend (Rose I. William).

On middle C, in common time, imperfect

we will tap the ivories –

some Memphis honey blues

for Milkman, gone today (perfect

in charity).  I remember how we clung together

in the greenhouse, long time gone.

Now distance is the quarantine… yet

only temporary, Pen.  We’ll meet somewhere

by snowflake relativity – that Providence

where every soul has dignity,

disintegrated from the sea

of Ocean River (Osip’s salience – a

wee raznochinets bubble of pure silvery glee).

The sky.  So clear tonight.

Transparent memory.  A light

chord lingers in the heart (soul liberty

the ancient melody).  Freedom, equality,

respect… humanity.

Like Newport’s Jeremy – buried by

John Gould’s oak, in Hemel Hempstead (age 90).

4.4.20

from light snow-years

COPPER RING

Snow tumbles into Minneapolis.

Twin Cities.  Meanwhile

the InSight capsule

settles onto Mars – whose promise

is to probe beneath the surface,

appraise the molten core

of our God of War

(riddle of the Minotaur).  Space

beckons insight down path P

toward planet X –

our dream of PAX

curled inside violence (a middle C

unrolling from the Lake of Galilee).

O Beast from Ocean,

dread Leviathan –

a void between two notes... blank lee

of the abyss!  The infant’s misery –

missing her heartbeat

once, with her complete

Oneness... whorled... into infinity?

Where Martian drones attack Queen Bea

(just being Bea, around

a crater in the Netherlands)

by orders of omnipotent Pharaoh

whose eye is like a palindrome

(kayak in garage)

from old (Ionic age)

Emordnilap – our catenary home

                   *

a long-suspended violet bloom

breathes hope, & yearning

for some answering

anemone (your cypripedium

reginae).  Orange-azure M-bridge

for an owlman... almond

OMO... woman-bond

of wisdom... dancing G-bride...

light between J-pillars, Okean-trees!

Out of the twomb

you spiraling come,

@tlantis – Jewel of July, high C of seas!

A copper ring from Palestine

incised with simple krater

& the name, PILATE

recalls the one whose sign

for “heart” breathes from the swing

of time (your twin, Julie).

Rose, rowing from the key

called PAX, which passeth understanding –

yet from each ordinary tent

of refugees, each family,

once forced to flee

from the mad king (sad infant

Minotaur), will come to bear

a normal world again –

out of the dream of man

& woman (breezes flowering the air).

12.1.18

Mediterranean or middle C

WOODEN WHORL

A Mediterranean or Middle

C – see?  Fulcrum

tempered on kingdom

come.  Providential soul-paddle.

Twin clouds of mist will frame

a motionless Morning Star.

Twin mares in a mirror

churn in her glory (lightnin’ flame).

Like Jonahs – brother-&-sister doves

chasing from dawn to dusk

their emerald cornhusk.

A linen cosmos-veil of mazel tovs

lips fashioned like coral canoe

skim swiftly upstream

to your veritas sunbeam –

Shakespearean headwaters (J-blue).

The wooden whorl of the knot-king,

skipping his safety net

around Gennesaret.

The one the crowds exalt... fling

into cauldron of Viking thing

(Odin’s raven, circling

– no, three).  O tree-ring

spiraling up from sea – sing,

C, for me!  The murky river

bottoms out past Memphis,

Cairo... (chi-rho, Isis) –

Mark Twain, sounding... forever.

10.8.18