bateaux of old Louisiana

SPEECHLESS GIFT

It was 50 years ago now, Julie.

We were with the sleepers

in a dream, the jumpers

on a fogbound bridge – our odyssey

a sleepwalk of necessity

from day to day.  America

was manifest, a replica

of heaven for the taking – see?

This land was made for you & me.

But you & I sank down

into Pacific depths, my clown,

so young, so sad, so gone.  Ahey

ey yo.  It’s in the bottomland

or on the ocean floor

you’ll find the coral door,

the seashell, Pearl – your eye-in-hand.

Like Joan of A. moored to a smoking pyre

or O. still singing in Leviathan-jaw

bateaux of old Louisiana

meet like rose petals in a western choir.

& the Word-made-light, that sank into the clay

sprang up again, as speechless gift

in the dome where every tongue will lift

& feed upon her painful vine (his dying-day).

Our ghost-dance, Julie – tiptoe in a dream.

JB whispers, Eurydice!

& circuiting the dome with me

hums from Rez graveyard in a Joan A-frame.

12.11.19

yodeling in Mendelssohn

LITTLE MIRROR

The mind is like a little mirror

& the word is like

a mirror in that lake.

We skated there, one ancient year –

across the icy glass, Heidi.

In Mendelssohn, sweet

neighborhood (complete

Garden of Cyrus now, in memory).

A melody of day-lilies cheers Henry

Hobo (by the Mississippi).

He might be somebody

you know – booked into penitentiary?

Sol.  Solo.  Absent Sheba

browses in another aisle

(archived in old Rhode Isle).

Her ship’s in search of Colchia

lambswool – seamless gold web,

mute mutuality –

griot reality

lofted to laughter (on Mount Horeb).

Square triangles of pyramids

fit into portable log

cabin logarithms, Mag.

Your stone’s a tiny tablet, hid

beside that lake, in Galilee –

a solidarity

sodality, a party

writ on water.  Fountain, artistry.

6.27.18

west of St. Louis

MASON JAR

& the word came out west of St. Louis.

Kind of hokey, like

a dust-devil psych-

out on eccentric orbit.  She was US.

The weird windlass twirled due Nord

into a wilderness

of cedar & watercress –

deserted road, iced-over, hard.

Held up on a tiny pinhead pine-

needle of sunlight, she spun

like a gyroscopic moon,

beholden to none.  She was fine

to behold, like a mason jar, with her G-

fitz-G major Eyelash Curl –

a square-dance whirl

around an Irish jug (from C

to C minor & back again).

She spoked light so lightly

all the ire of unspritely

iron nations (dusty canyon

grandeur in a pride of lions)

molted into Phoenix

ash & rainbow peacock’s

eyes – & I can’t write these lines

without tears wide as Okeanos

coursing planetary curves,

as Stella Morris swerves

another starfish into star (yes, yes!)

                  *

2.8.17