FIFE-HUM
The gazebo is an octagon
of peace & quietness
this morning. A salience,
a turtleshell (on gray-green
surface of a Sunday plane).
By the tumbledown back
fence, buried in black
soil & leaf-remains (rain-
soaked), I found a mysterious
old wind-chime. Slim row
of silver pipes, bow-
tied to tangle free by turquoise
winged cherub (with turtledove
nestled against his chest,
like a kid’s cherished
carrier pigeon). Bell-tones hove-
to in the air, by the furrowed brow
of weathered cedar gazebo-
door. We’ve all passed over
the red, & through blue forest now
ring the tiny silver seraphim;
your carmine car is here
from emerald whispershere
cry the whirl-a-wings, that skim
in ferrous rings’ unmoving flight
above elongate coracle
of almond lips... One coal
glows from steep well of night
*
like North Star in vast Ocean State
– one double rose wheel
swelling out of two – seal
of Elohim! – Love to consecrate;
the union of the subtle One
who hums through everyone
across creation – sun-
dance of manifold children, spun
by tread of Ariadne-gold –
maize ring of Chartres
frisbee’d to Paradise
atop oblong St. Louis mound
by monks’ naval arc-sheepfold.
As in shady Ravenna once
forecast of Providence
uttered by clay beseeching, rolled
from dusty lips toward dark mosaic;
fast prayer of Alighieri
bent by Beatrice
via sigh of starlight... On a windbreak
east of Voronezh, quick beak
of finch-tuned Mandelstam
corrals her sweet I AM
within a limpid rill of spring – a streak
of black-gold monarch wings
slant toward akme
of octave solidarity –
whose fife-hum resurrection brings.
7.9.17
