JESTER THREADS
In the anonymous late grass,
among the stray brown
stalks like overgrown
aqueducts for bumblebees
Hobo looks off toward the flesh-
tone Mississippi bridge.
He yearns for the courage
to be like Woodpecker, in his mesh
of stealthy wasps & stolen honey –
I mean that Thunderbird,
drilling his fiery word
dovetailing out of Galilee;
the lightning rod atop the dome
whose inner lining is mosaic;
a kingfisher, whose beak
flings Geryon from his kingdom.
Late August air grows clear, autumnal.
He’ll shed his jester threads
like Hal doffs Falstaff duds
& lie down by the Rio del
Espiritu Santo. Watch how that firebird
melts hearts into unison –
lifts into comprehension
both Jerusalem & Athens, toward
a chastened & revived Cosmopolis
where neighbor-love is measure
of the planetary future... &
then he’ll mosey back to Minneapolis.
8.24.18
