by old Bronze River

PROVIDENCE ROSE

Every day’s a sabbath day

for Hobo in retirement.

He drowses, full content

by old Bronze River (jasper, say –

carnelian, or sard).  On an empty bench

left for Henry once

in Dante’s Providence;

muttering seek ye the good, mensch –

avoid evil.  That would be a start.

The natural conscience

inheres in us; hence

dignity of life abides at heart

like some inalienable hearth-fire,

wants but a spark

to swivel toward magnetic

North (up near Itasca, where

scampers el Baby Rio del Espiritu).

That’s his geography –

some Hart-biography

sketched by the circle of a grey-blue

palm (O Thou smoky Hand

of Fire) – lightening the clouds

with limestone pigeon-crowds

& Jonah-spray... playful Leviathan!

O chaste & ancient liberties

free men & women found

promising iris-ground

out of primordial charities

              *

when Pharaoh was scapegoat too

& idols of the king

morph into Arty-thing

or potsherd red-white-blue

jewel-eye... old Noah’s galley

wakening in Galilee,

when ordinary Mary

hums a grass-green prairie

ray.  The light of Providence

shines out of living things

her omnipresence – springs

on breezy air (moist & immense)

into the metamorphoses

of human times, places –

so many steeplechases

in one race!  Four horses

at Clop-Clop Ellipse rounded

the bend by Hobo’s bench –

each iron bit they clench

forged in a molten sun-crowned

whisper-salience.  Providence

Rose crossed over the line

in first.  Bright human-

divine dervish foot-dance –

key pivoter in clay, O starfish

sun-Leviathan –

O luminous Kid of Man

in cloud-basilica (original Ish).

6.5.17

a line in the road

GREY BIRD

Sarah found a baby turtle

this morning, inching along

a line in the road.  My song-

salience, or green volcano-yurt

on slow horizontal too... toward

her thorny rose-matrix;

my scrambled pick-up-sticks,

snarled with gold poncho thread

in limpid greys of dawn twilight.

This mutter-dome of whisper-

leaves, of zephyr-vespers

veils an agate lamp (magnet

for Blue Morpho & monarch flight)

pendant amid cedars –

like black-yellow flickers

gathered into marigold (O milky knight).

My abstract worming through its raving

scribble-babble, cartoon

peacock incarnation...

a myriad glancing-whorl becoming

the figure for your beaming face.

O the clear air of this

metaphysical silence!

Whose pause released one Finnish race

to lift her soaring steel mandorla

into lofty grace

planted in pivot-place

of riverine & prairie space – ah,

Psyche!  Sister Persephone!

I feel your sunny smile

now – lifting lilacs mile

on mile into an octave-harmony

                *

of active commonality –

Joy’s hero-trial!

Path P – Indian file –

thread-thin tattoo to Liberty!

So the little tree of J

is ever-living.  So

Jonah bee surfacing

tuned to your buzzing play,

high Sophie – through the fallen timbers

west of gray Verdun,

the world’s war-passion

settled in destruction.  Embers

from a wraith of spring, the sack of Prince

Henry’s royal oak...

one ashen acorn spoke

welded to purple wheel of Providence.

The crayon trembles in my hand.

The palm curves green

circumference – Iona

ray, from Ocean State (to every land);

the grey bird murmurs through the surf;

the Camelot of JFK

& blessedness of MLK

merge in the spray, resolve to turf.

So Thunderbird ruffles the stream.

The turtle is a Phoenix

swelling at the matrix –

agate child skipping (on waves of dream).

5.18.17

Pin dat, Pindar !

CIRCLET COMB

                                         to Flavia Saraiva

So light she could dance in the palm of your hand

diminutive Flavinha

16 yrs old (4’4”)

spins round a square in Rio-land

revolving figure out of Faery   circling

like Geraldine Fitzgerald

with redhead emerald

circlet comb   encompassing

a globe    within her seashell shallop

green mandala made

of hands  rosy mermaid

(see Phoebe’s sapient dewdrop

on linen frame   for navigation)

one palm in the hurricane

eye   Persephone

shows leaf again   becomes whole nation

wheeling   in the Great Bear dance

around an oak tree   acorns

reigning like   Golgotha crowns

skullcaps & elf beanies   the romance

of Mnemosyne   again, again

the early history

of Buffalo   or Rimini

Ravenn   or Petersburg   Pipestone

or Voronezh   or Minneapolis,

even   along a spiral

fiddlehead   springs tall

her heavy lightness   like   an Okie kiss

8.10.16 

Palm print by Grace Tagliabue & Phoebe Gould

What's in a sine wave ?

PALM WAVE

This milky February sun

foretells another spring.

Still far-off – winging

eyebrow-arch reflection

of a snow-blue almond bridge.

Yet near... a looming

whisper (out of Red Wing,

maybe) in your ear.  Sweet pledge

of union, set sail southward

by wattle-crane basket

to mossy reed thicket

below Delta (belle Campagnarde).

Knot-eye of Popeye raptor-

sailor, here trans-

mogrified to mildest

peahen-cockerel (Eeyore-

Sophia, high over Frisco Bay).

Equable & everpresent

omni-beneficent

orthogonal well of charity

infusing one & all (mandala-

dome, dominion’s

doom).  Everyone’s

chest de trésor – heart’s ah,

life’s oh... amended Manitou

of Man.  For me & you,

within the vernal blue

of ocean wave (palm-feather true).

2.1.16