plastic leaves & bottlecaps

SALTY DEW

This autumn wind-chime Sophie made

like El Anatsui (African

weaver spider-man)

from plastic leaves & bottlecaps, tied

with bright ribbons – a key, a table knife,

a silver keychain ring,

a crystal ball... everything

needful for the voyage into afterlife

(October & November, winter

ice).  I hear it now,

an echo from the prow

of gray stone mothership.  Your

Notre Dame of infinite mercy,

villain François.  Or Chartres,

Hen – where light chartreuse

rhymes with sky-blues, calm sea

of sunset rose.  On the scarred floor

a labyrinthine feedback

loop speeds Argo-carrack

by umbilical thesis to Ari’s door.

Arachne, Ariadne...in Rhode Island?

One subterranean Ocean

Stream, Atlantean

where every son of J sails home again

across Medea’s Méditerranée – &

where Medusa’s stone frown

melts, to gleaming crown

of salty dew... grail of compassion.

9.11.18

most August wind-chime

MIGRANT TABERNACLE

So another August 8th-month

inches toward its close.

Whatever Pilate says,

goes – IN RI, nailed to a terebinth.

Whatever happens, happens, now.

An old man is an oak leaf

skimming like a thief,

going to ground.  & when the winds blow

the silver pipes of Sophie’s chime

go tingle-tangle... melody

of sea-blue cherub, see?

Clasping Columbia, his sweet tame

turtledove.  While her fire-engine chair

waits in my octagon

beneath late-summer sun –

a migrant tabernacle... Amor-

Shalom... transportable to Paradise.

Her father is a recent

immigrant, & citizen.

The Shekinah is mercy for chaste eyes –

unquenchable fountain of pure love

for simple existence, for

its mysterious source.  Our

wisdom, Sophie – like your turtledove –

comes shimmering down... she permeates

all things, & everywhere.

As it was always, my dear –

the mind of Love revives, creates.

8.31.18

the wind-chime found

FIFE-HUM

The gazebo is an octagon

of peace & quietness

this morning.  A salience,

a turtleshell (on gray-green

surface of a Sunday plane).

By the tumbledown back

fence, buried in black

soil & leaf-remains (rain-

soaked), I found a mysterious

old wind-chime.  Slim row

of silver pipes, bow-

tied to tangle free by turquoise

winged cherub (with turtledove

nestled against his chest,

like a kid’s cherished

carrier pigeon).  Bell-tones hove-

to in the air, by the furrowed brow

of weathered cedar gazebo-

door.  We’ve all passed over

the red, & through blue forest now

ring the tiny silver seraphim;

your carmine car is here

from emerald whispershere

cry the whirl-a-wings, that skim

in ferrous rings’ unmoving flight

above elongate coracle

of almond lips...  One coal

glows from steep well of night

                 *

like North Star in vast Ocean State

– one double rose wheel

swelling out of two – seal

of Elohim! – Love to consecrate;

the union of the subtle One

who hums through everyone

across creation – sun-

dance of manifold children, spun

by tread of Ariadne-gold –

maize ring of Chartres

frisbee’d to Paradise

atop oblong St. Louis mound

by monks’ naval arc-sheepfold.

As in shady Ravenna once

forecast of Providence

uttered by clay beseeching, rolled

from dusty lips toward dark mosaic;

fast prayer of Alighieri

bent by Beatrice

via sigh of starlight...  On a windbreak

east of Voronezh, quick beak

of finch-tuned Mandelstam

corrals her sweet I AM

within a limpid rill of spring – a streak

of black-gold monarch wings

slant toward akme

of octave solidarity –

whose fife-hum resurrection brings.

7.9.17