like a small town playground

LIGHT GOLD

The restoration of all things…

what’s it about this phrase

corrals my shifty gaze?

Some infant stimulus it brings?

As at the source of vast rivers

(Mississippi, Danube)

a baby spring’s hubbub

purls out of ground… shimmers

in bitter February air & light.

The restoration of a truth

too plain, too clear, to booth

as Peter would (its glare so bright).

Universal constant, Einstein’s measure;

flexible cinch-thread

of muttering light gold

sent to bind man, through rose embrasure.

Power’s byzantine – but truth Franciscan.

Peaceable polity

is founded in equality

chaste as a child’s eye (Petersburgian).

The restoration of the human world

is like a small town playground,

where the rusty sound

of an ancient iron swing is curled

within your inner ear.  You heard it

years ago, once… now,

again.  No one knows how

the goldfinch’s tricolor obsignat.

2.16.20

on the snow path

MOSAIC WELL

On the snow path between bridges

the sun squints beneath

clouds; twin hawks unsheath

talons, whirl over river’s edge

(aerial wrestle-dance).  Winter sky

slows the flow down,

frozen.  Last windblown

oak leaves sail the bone-dry

ground.  Yet in another age

innocent gold honey

fed the sons of Zebedee

from almond lips of Nazir-sage –

his eagle-crow, accompanied

by flutes & turtledoves.

The knot of shackled loves

in your Knossos-heart are freed

when crystalline snow-light, like salt

shines through the octagon

of your mandorla – son

& father, sister mother & daughter melt

into one mead-measure of fire

& the smile of Manitou

mirrors an arc for you –

primordial apse of Apollinaire.

Whorled vortex of the shepherd’s roam

reveals a human face

in that holy place –

mosaic well from kingdom come.

12.8.16

ineffable mosaic sky

CLOUD-FEATHERS

The air so brilliant & clear today

beside the Bronze Age river.

The railroad bridge hovers

over its reflection – a light play

of diagonals, like water-spiders

on a pond, or cloud-feathers

above the Jordan, tethered

to a steadfast figure (Jasper’s

orant mariner, circumferencing

gray sea with shady palm).

That chanting shepherd, calm

beneath an indigo wheel of blazing

stars... one cheerful face beaming

from the medallion

in Classe (Apollinarian)

under darkened wooden ceiling

of abandoned ship, beached in pine-

swamp, at Ravenna’s edge.

Mere icons of a human pledge

so simple, local, omni-Byzantine –

ineffable mosaic sky

where Love bends waves

to lift us from our graves

into a metamorphosis   kind Aye

above halo of tears   you streak

with serpentine arches

agios   agios   agios

one river-rainbow   in an eagle’s beak

7.29.16

the order of the day

LITTLE MOTH

Jesus likely would not recognize

what we have made of him –

exemplar (in rite & hymn)

of royal prehistoric Zeus

or Pharaoh-gilded rain.  Human

mind climbs out of beast.

Not long ago, the feast

was drunken heads – the scar remain.

The ink dries on a twisted pattern.

Tyrant’s father-hamlet,

laden sack – fried omelet-

omen (under midnight sun).

A raven zigzags over Noah’s

bow (yew, cypress,

acacia).  Her nest

will not be found on land, selah.

Someone, singing a see-saw

in Galilee.  Sea-

shanty (shanti, shanti)

maybe.  Malcolm?  Simone?  Naw...

maybe.  Light metamorphosis

the order of the day.

Pines, tamarack (way

back beyond Ravenna, Beatrice)...

A little moth molts molten gold

out of black stone,

southwest (of high Zion).

Wings ray to Nazir tinder... (fold).

2.19.16