to look fear in the face

ROSE BATEAU

March trudges wearily this year

toward April.  The robins

tremolo their violins

with plaintive warbling.  The end is near

for many.  Gaunt doctors, nurses

wait upon the Emperor…

his unrelenting petty terror

carts off families in makeshift hearses.

Now courage & compassion race ahead

to look fear in the face –

offer to stand in place

for fainting visitants, among the dead.

Is life a dream, or mere nightmare?

Behold her profile, bent

over the bed… his silent

fellowship… the grieving watch they share

with every tremulous shocked sufferer

(who must foresee the end

as lungs contract… distend).

Is life a dream?  We wonder, wonder.

I see a silent servant of servants,

across whose labors galaxies

& all their glory graze

in circles (up above our sacraments

& merry games).  I see her figure

shine like sunlight on brown river;

glance at Rabbi Live-Forever;

smile from rose bateau (Dream-Builder).

3.30.20

one copper penny

MAGENTA DUSK

Airless stasis of the Brown Decades.

Peto’s trompe l’oeuil.

Abe’s wound is mortal.

Funeral train; black silk parades.

One copper penny glimmers in a well,

grown moss-green.  Imago

for suffering servant... halo

of ineffable good will.  Don’t break the spell.

Was it for nought this Man of Sorrows

took upon his shoulders

our hellfire – that smolders

while his penny ransoms all tomorrows?

Even Old Abe was an infant once.

Loafing on a ship

of milk & honey, lip

curving over smiling waves... a trance

of Promised Land, a river’s dream.

So Henry’s, Hobo’s path

folds under wrath –

collapses bridges into earthquake seam.

Reminiscences of 1865.

An absinthe memory

of rancid statuary

cluttering the dead wasps’ hive.

Disconsolate, they ramble riverbanks –

until the last light breaks

the sky into rose lakes,

magenta dusk.  Let us give thanks.

2.12.19