mumbling toward spring

EARLY CAVE

To trace the plummeting ellipse

of these post-Easter flakes –

the hexagon each makes

a microcosm of the temple’s

lightweight, hollow honeycomb.

Awaiting his parousia...

ghost-dance Messiah,

Nazir out of Galilee-to-come.

Far-off tumult of primavera.

Genesis of purling springs.

Pale intermingling things

in punished neighborhoods (era

of Pharaoh, or Caesar).  Signals

from an early cave, or tomb.

Eternal vault (the womb

of patient Lazarus, of Jonah’s wails).

Natasha’s limp.... Clover’s marble

Isis-veil.  The keening

eye of Magdalen (far-seeing

heart).  A Galilean stable

where animals & refugees

breathe the same air.

Earth-time halts there –

her catenary thread a breeze

lifting twin pillars (Alpha &

Omega).  Planted so

in graveyard snow...

grain of renewal (to the end).

4.2.18

painting by Nancy Hart

Languid, voluptuous, orange

This poem forms a pair with the previous one (see yesterday's blog entry).

TRANSPARENT SPRING

This wheel’s unseen circumference

includes a coffee can

from Hart – a Savarin,

no? – looping a salience

of tulip spires (languid, voluptuous,

orange).  For Hart, Johns

sounded gray Ocean

& signaled with a palm Love’s

one transparent spring (from deep

to deep).  A little tree –

lemon? – mustard, maybe;

the orange flourish of a steep

green trumpet, embracing its iron

lattice like a bride

in May... no one can hide

from Love’s almond dominion.

This doctrine bides each alteration.

A sigh amid these wheels

rides wingèd heels

from scythe to seedy germination –

Time’s origin (space-flowering).

Leaf-whispers from a pair

of olive trees, who share

one catenary pattern... stirring

life-draft, dangled from twin pillars,

lifted toward Pacific

azure – scarred, terrific

sentinels of hope (hers, yours).

4.13.16

Tulips (Nancy Hart)