ARIADNE’S CROWN
A limpid morning, Palm Sunday.
In the little woods
behind the Shriners’ (closed)
Hospital, gaunt oaks lift branches high
in anxious supplication (to an emerald
Acorn King). Prince Hal,
scion of OK Gal, in his corral
of febrile & uneasy crowns, grows bold –
to place his father’s own upon his brow
in the Jerusalem Chamber
(where Huck & Jim clamber
aboard… that cardboard scow,
the trumped-up King of England’s dhou).
The river bends, reverent
& full of revery (blent
with the clay into its royal slough).
You boy, there! Yes you, boy –
rivery O-buoy! Come here!
King David shall appear
& dance – like naked singularity
or Solomonic wormhole, full of sacred
density – before the Ark!
& with the flicker of a quark
the center of the galaxy turns red
& churns like furnace of the cosmic kiln –
inverted mirror of MLKy
Y’Way – so massively
reflecting (like a missile-toed oak-gall)
*
that mauve & scarlet Rooster of the Day
who chants his clear call
to Event Horizon Wall
& leads the Magi home – another way!
M87 – black hole (multiplied
by 56, at least) –
from center of the feast
of lights – preternatural Virgo, Argo-eyed
Hagia Sophia – Isis of Ocean River
barge! Prince Hal
trembles now, elliptical
epileptic – empty Apollo quiver…
overshadowed by that Thunderbird
shadow-of-shadows (el Rio
del Espiritu Santo).
His Ariadne’s Crown only a word
for the implicit eagle’s nest of silence
where the plague-eddies
of blind King Eddy
disappear into Big Muddy, & the dense
congregation of the Humble One
who rides a mule into town
(distance-divided by their own
disease, their wrangles for the crown) –
are suddenly hushed before those lips
mute-smiling, like a rose canoe;
those palms, encircling us now
in one speechless embrace… (love-clasp).
4.5.20
