Lanthanum 12.1

1

unless the Lord builds the house, the builders build in vain

A cloudy noon in June, in Providence.

The year draws out toward its longest day.

Hobo – or is it Henry now? – will try to say

once more what ails him... is it loneliness?

Sprawled on a broken bench at Prospect Terrace...

(or dryness? – now his hectic dream’s dispersed,

it seems)...  By that low cliff... as if over a coast

of absent turf, a sea of air.  He feels depressed.

Recall a day like this, out for a walk with you

tasting stray honeysuckle, that still cascades

in creamy orange & green over the palisade

on George... under a high & quiet royal blue.

& then I heard the softest sound... a sweet

low-warbling-mellifluent air-flute (through

sea-grass, prairie rushes).  O Henry, will you

never, ever learn?  I’m here, my slow, effete

& doubtful comrade – here always.  Remember

now : implanted Love is as a tiny mustardseed

of fire.  It burns through your sad frozen world

of lost desire, to build anew : Cosmos, tempered

by justice – by transparency & truth (clear air

above Lanthanum Rd).  Metaphysical Providence

is born this way – each day : out of beneficence

& magnanimity, God’s brimming Ocean River –

endless lovingkindness.  Deepest Mississippi joy!

Now go... explore!  Beyond those azure gates...

So I rose up to the old cliffside – looked west

again... my heart buoyant.  Freedom, ahoy!

      6.9.12

Lanthanum 11.22

22

When the mist cleared, and I saw blue sky again

I found myself in the shadow of that tall oak

where Natasha & I had squirreled, in Prospect Park.

Then I saw a solitary cloud suddenly halt – descend

just overhead.  It was that Cumulo-Muse herself,

in her C-boat : she stood in the cockpit, smiling,

by a sunny Son of Man – their arms embracing

one another’s shoulders as they piloted a swift

approach.  You’re free now, Henry, Natasha said;

your burden of light lifted, the Way lies open.  &

you no longer need my lens – power of vision

is your own.  Look back toward that river road –

see for yourself.  I turned again toward St. Louis.

Saw an Arch beside the river – its substance now

pure rainbow, while a majestic evening sun, low

in the sky, looked back... radiating calm & peace

in azure & vermilion waves.  When Man returns,

& reckons rightly his redemption, & the Love

from which it stems... then all shall be saved –

Earth will rest, enfold a planetary equilibrium.

We must leave for a while, Henry – you have

yet more to learn now, on your own. & so

off they flew.  I stood there, watched them go...

yet sensed, somehow (under the architrave

nearby) I was not alone.  & then the granite

face of Roger Williams slowly, slyly. slightly

swiveled... smiled... at me.  Hail, Henry, my

friend, the Founder said.  You’ve put it right –

my gospel – all along.  The Father has instilled

the Golden Rule for all mankind to share – none

shall tyrannize over a neighbor, who has known

that Law within.  So Providence will be fulfilled –

when every child imbibes the milk of Agape,

& every soul repents, turns back, is healed.

At last, each one must face his own congealèd

sin : O city corrupt – dark as any sullen satrapy;

& only through that marrow door

can we find wisdom : equilibrium

to wed vocation to res publicum

with conscience – soul coraggio –

a limestone liberty.  Roger lifts an open hand

& waves... & then returns to his engraved

eternity.  Felt, strangely, in my soul, strafed

with deeds misdone.  High tides of suffering &

pain, inflicted on those near to me... neighbors

in life.  Only God’s mercy might redeem my soul

from utmost darkness, desolation.  This the whole

of that beginning of wisdom then : a true remorse.

I closed my eyes.  Seemed to be afoot in dream,

up Morris Avenue, past Temple Emanu-El.  Gold

honeycomb... a sunlit salience, prized as of old

in modesty (‘mid Babylon trials).  Into some

anointing oil... some olive grove.  As if my soul

became a sketch... Cézanne, Bruegel... The Road

to Calvary.  A crowd of peasants, soldiers, rude

jongleurs... hustling a fragile reed into his role

(bent, broken, crucified).  We can’t know You

as You are.  Only a man destroyed by wrong.

Only lamb, splayed for hangry-raging throng...

human emblem of self-murder.  Imago (blue).

I opened my eyes.  I stood on a wide steppe

or prairie, not far from home.  Old Black Elk,

the Catholic Lakota, was making signs (Milky

Way, Evergreen) with his friend Martin (steep

soul of Atlanta).  & then he lifted his clay pipe

toward the six directions, in a diamond shape –

silent, smoky salience; took me by the nape

of my neck – turned me toward the gap

in a rainbow.  Toward the West (beyond Volga

& Dnieper).  Go into the forest now, Henry –

the wilderness.  I follow his peremptory

& fatherly command... into Romania.

Where was I?  Not in Providence Rhode Island.

Infinities of leaves rustled above my head, &

all around.  Shade was dense, trackless.  Thin

bands of light shivered beneath enormous stands

of beech & pine.  I followed a hum of fluting

rills, that seemed to bend & fork into one

stream.  The light intensified... the sun

winked through the branches... something

droned, far off – kaleidoscopic, piercing clang

sustained in waves across sea-slanted prows

of trees.  & then I came into a clearing.  Now

the source of all that sound appeared.  Clad

all in wood, the timber gathered to a peakèd

crown, hid from rude men.  Its wall is icon –

every wrinkled seam & weathered grain sown

with inwoven blessed acolytes.  King David

tunes his psaltery, Maximus gables his book;

Plato & Socrates... Moses & Joan of Arc...

tendrils of grapevines twirl around their walk

through shady sylvan grave (to Jordan-brook).

      6.6.12

Lanthanum 11.21

21

See... O sip & see...

from brooklets of a careworn face

a-brim with gleeful cheer, nevertheless

this everlasting, omnipresent Victory.

Rivulets of tears from infinite eyes

like rainfall through the channels of a tree

slanting in streams across Hagia Sophie –

its 28 arcs from limbs of cottonwood rise

now, to celebrate the Mighty Ghost’s winsome-

creative indestructibility : for out of nothing

has our cosmos come, to be an everlasting

home – our undefiled, restored kingdom

& under Purgatory’s transient sky

we grow absent-minded... forget

that lucky heaven-vault on high

is a limber, everlasting habitat

of Love.  I saw a monarch drift over the Arch

making his way across the 50 patchwork fields

of Jubilee... & through the 7 sabbath-days (bells

pealed in ecstasy), into the secret element (patch

of most rare earth of all) : into the myrrh-box

heart of a mandorla, there – the cypress chest

Natasha-Magdalen held close to heart.  Best

man & groom... water, wine in one... Rock’s

Old Faithful splash-landing.  Man-door.

Sheep-gate.  Shepherd, lamb, in one – your

little Tree of J, grown great lambshade.  Hear,

O Israel!  Examine the vintage.  Harvest is near. 

6.5.12

Lanthanum 11.20

20

I was glad when they said unto me : Let us

go into the house of the Lord, whispered Natasha.

Come now, Henry – lift up with me those everlasting

doors.  I saw two massive, lambent wheels of rose

roll smoothly into place, and merge, and cross –

& form a smaller, oblong shape, like a mandorla.

Understand, Henry – these lenses magnify, &

signify, the ringèd iris of my eye.  So Maximus

perceived (with his own microfine discernment)

the harmony of every two-in-one – of each

polarity – sealed by this third integrity of peace

& union.  So Mediation frames the firmament.

I’ll whisper it, in an outline –

its hour has not yet come;

the chessgame of measureless heaven

is mated with sweat – & wisdom.

In me, Henry – Natasha – she who limped along

with him, toward Osip’s lonely grave – in me you

see the Ghost of many a Mary : the mother who

gave birth to God; she who witnessed his strong

trial; & she who held him in the garden, signing

to her alone (before the rest) his overwhelming

Victory.  She spoke, & then I saw two wings

of tall cross-lambinated timber, slowly opening

within the Gate.  Light burst across

the river, through the portal... & I saw

a shrouded, bearded, smiling face – in awe

I recognized Him – we had met before...  O

      6.5.12

Lanthanum 11.19

19

Birth-pangs, they said... murmurs my cloudy friend.

I look into her tender face... sad-luminous moon

turning her smile toward joy.  Something funny

happened today – let’s take a detour round that bend.

She lifts her magnifying glass again.  Two figures

in a heart-shaped, lilac shade – at first I thought

Black Elk, MLK?  Or Blackstone, Roger?  Was it

Whitman & Hart Crane?  Or Francesco of Assisi

with his Sienese sis, Caterina?  Under the High Line

parkway, in Manhattan – finding a newsmap of the

sky – Wolf Song & Billy, by River 4iver.  Eh...

why?  I asked.  Said she, What’s love?  Its sign?

So much pain... where’s the wellspring of sweet airs?

In the rain drops, she cried... I felt her tears.

Eyes, mine, welled in turn.  The wind bears, heart

to heart, the swelling riverglory that we share –

your story... mine.  She raised the crystal triad

to my eyes again.  I saw a blazing yellow star

& one minute black pebble, drifting like a tear

across its face.  Looked down to the riverside –

the two brothers still stood beside the Gate –

the whirlmist dissipated... Comes lastful measure

of Mankind, whispered Natasha.  Transfigured

here... my soul doth magnify.  & then a great

Someone broke through that limestone clay

beneath the Arch... a buried man, like Joseph

from his brothers’ well – like a flowering staff

of almond, out of frozen ground... today.  Today.

6.5.12

Lanthanum 11.18

18

So we hovered in Natasha’s buoyant hydrofoil

above that busy riverine flotilla.  One all-human

artery... strong blue-green memory of Eden’s

streamy quatrefoil.  Now, to the fiery coil

where all the waters, all these fleets are born,

from whence they’re borne, my comrade said.

Take up my lens.  Note again that thread

of porphyry bisecting it – fine purple line

quadrated at one silver matrix, in the center.

Now find the Gate once more.  I looked down

toward St. Louis – saw that 28-point golden

dome had folded back into one steely flare.

A whirlwind rotated between its prongs;

behind, across the Mississippi, I could see

vague outlines of a salience – the earthy

green of ancient mounds.  Cahokia.  Wrongs

shall be righted, Natasha murmured then.  Look

now.  Two upright figures stood on either wing

of Arch and whirlwind : Martin Luther King,

Black Elk.  Suddenly in unison they spoke.

O blood-drenched Earth!  Your hour of birth-pain

comes due.  Arrogant, complacent Man!  Dusty

white clay, brown, yellow, black!  For vanity

& petty spite, you swallow up the grain –

split blue heaven from red ground!  You snipe

left hand from right – your children’s violets

in tatters now!  Hew to Eternity : an agate

gift!  Dwell, do well – the door’s AGAPE!

    6.5.12

Lanthanum 11.17

17

So we lurked there, under the flickering canopy

of oakleaves, on the Terrace.  Suddenly Natasha

leapt to her feet.  Come on, Hen!  We’ve stashed

in this hutch long enough – look!  The Gateway’s

waiting for us!  She produces the frames again –

again, far out west, I spy the dazzling golden

bauble of that dome beside the river.  Our own

homegrown Hagia Sophia...  OK – climb on

into my Falcon Cloudvertible.  We’re gonna zip.

I squeeze inside the ethereal airship.  Call her

Spirit of St. Ella Chartwell – formal moniker,

anyway.  Ella will do.  Then we launch at a clip

& soar high into the sunbright blue!  In no time

(literally) we’re hovering above the Mississippi,

the wide-open Gloriana of midwestern infinity

stretching every way below.  Slow pantomime,

a parade of ships!  Airboats, barges, carracks &

canoes; dhows, elf-coracles, fly-boats; gondolas &

garbage scows; hydrofoils, inflatables; junks, lighters,

motorboats; Nordlands, outriggers, punts & rafts –

sloops, towboats... umiaks... Very Slender Vessels;

wakas, water taxis... yachts & yawls... Z-boats!

My eyes went wide.  This darting intensity – gnats

on a drowsy serpent, faring upstream, down... swells

from one subterranean, Uranian source.  Springs

from Alph to Ocean River, round & through us,

all-engulfing; flows to one fiord we each must

cross at last.  Clear Jordan... brook of winnowing.

  6.3.12  

Lanthanum 11.16

16

In the morning I was curious, asking Natasha for

her special, spectral spectacles again.  I wanted

to inspect her with them.  Diffidently she granted

my request... almost held back.  You want to share

what I give you secretly, in my arboreal chamber,

Henry.  But this is not the way.  Here, take

this lump of softened frankincense – will make

your vision clearer.  So I brush that amber

gum across the gem... & look at her.  Dark

glance of wounded eye.  Lightning-streak

across her brow, below a stormy jet-black

crown.  Guileless, she semaphors to trunk

of lithe hieroglyphic tree, nearby : aflower now

(untimely) with steep flocks of lamplit bloom.

& in that magnifying glass, the trunk became

a river, & the stream branched – overflown

with saints, philosophers... martyrs, kings (David

with psaltery, & Maximus with scroll; Abraham

with shepherd-crook, & Miriam, with arms

flung wide in song).  This Yesh-tree’s gravèd,

frescoed on a tiny church – forested away deep

in mountains of Romania, Henry.  Someday

you’ll cross that porch.  Press tears of myrrh

across the little central lens.  I did.  Weep,

poets, for your hearts of brass!  I see Natasha

proceed slowly up a path, in Voronezh... & then

a desolate someone, by garden grave.  O Man...

these lenses but enlarge my eyes.  Ephphatha.

        6.3.12

Lanthanum 11.15

15

So we gazed a while, Natasha & I, through those

marvelous leaves of glass... tinned honey-gold

roses, marked by a razor-thin tread of blood.

Conical... conjunct... triangulation on the nose

of hunter-sense (hayloft of Maximus).  Where

the Abyssinian star-map unfolds, slightly (silently).

Noted Memphis-shadow of Melchizedek (milky

with peace & lovingkindness) recite his prayer :

O praise the Lord, all ye nations; praise him,

all ye people.  For his merciful kindness is great

toward us : and the truth of the Lord endureth

for ever.  Praise ye the Lord (O perfect hymn).

The leaves of the oak tree whispered around us

as night fell, & our vision poured like wine.

The synthesis of Maximus, a conjugation

of the two-in-one, make three : made Kairos.

& someone stands there in the shadows

looking out at the dry garden, listening

to vine-limbs creak in the night air.  Sing

the lines to me.  You made them, didn’t you.

Someone played through me.  Fiddling gypsy

from Bukovina, maybe... stood near the beech-

vine, almond, ashtree.  Ground of our beseeching,

baby.  Baobab.  Somebody like dying bumblebee...

tipsy-traipsy butterfly.  Monarch o’milkweed.

Hobo Bob, come back again.  Risen from agate

grave (a flung fern-spray of tender stone).  What

shall I say, Natasha?  Our limpid comrade.  ‘sfree.

    6.2.12

Lanthanum 11.14

14

Now... my turn to be serious.  With troubled look

I said to her : This is a grand, mysterious edifice,

Natasha.  As regards the harmony of the universe

of which you spoke, I’m hesitant... since to invoke

a radial wheel of contraries brings to my mind

all those hard oppositions I can’t reconcile

so easily – sweetness with bitterness, smiles

of joy with trails of tears... kind with unkind...

Her eyes’ blue-emerald shone more brightly then

as, slowly, she said : You draw near the crux

of our mystery play.  Man stands in the matrix.

Wisdom cleaves down the line between angel &

animal, spirit & flesh.  A soul’s neither sweet

nor bitter in essence, but rather salt – a fiery,

ineradicable cube of everlastingness, which only

the Source from whom it came lifts to complete

fulfillment : one lifelong & filial love-devotion.

That central deed we discern through this lens.

Look.  I lifted the crystalline trifocals again.

They will help you understand.  A procession

of poets & philosophers, artists & saints revolved

with dancing, singing steps around the 28 cloud-

gray pillars of that armature beside the river... led

by Black Elk arm-in-arm with Simone Weil (beloved

rose of France & Israel).  & then I saw descend

out of the sky a shining-shimmering iris of gold –

some kind of tapest-riant bow had softly sheathed

her domical salience (in luminous-reclusive shroud).

    6.2.12

Lanthanum 11.13

13

Natasha, from her tree branch, arrowed at me

an ember of fire.  Serious.  Now you must look

to the pilot-wheel of things.  This’ll be a picnic

like no other, poet.  Oedipus solved the wily

Sphinx’s jest : the answer was Man.  But a fire

at heart of each of us – the thundering hearth-

volcano of the core – outdoes all human effort

to discern, or torpid wit to articulate.  This dire

declaration shook my courage.  Never fear,

Henry.  Haven’t you been curious to learn

about these lenses?  It was true.  Their golden

rims enclosed a sort of figure 8 – a super-clear-

brisk pearliness, bisected by a thin horizon line

of silken violet thread.  At their center, where

the ovals joined, a small upright elongate sphere

swelled in a mirror-light... & here the most fine

rose-violet crosshairs met.  These octave-frames

(zoomy O-zone) were summoned up, configured

out of waves of whispered sound – as if wired

by droning bees.  Lent to anyone who proclaims

sustaining harmony – youngster Milo, for example,

with his Globetrotter tune, in Brooklyn.  Cosmos,

Henry!  Call it a marriage of polarities.  Trellis &

vine, motion & stillness; known, unknown... supple

wedding-whorl of contraries.  Now take a look.

I squint... & see a haze around St. Louis, near

the river.  Blurred... a mist... & suddenly appear

14 great arches – circled – knotted at their peak.

6.2.12

Lanthanum 11.12

12

  remembering John Tagliabue (1923-2006)

In the uncertain light of early dawn, I woke to find

the ghostly presence of Natasha, still nearby.

A morning mist flooded our tree-limb hideaway

& heavy branches seemed to dissolve... distend...

turn insubstantial.  This cloud breathes everywhere,

she said; we’re perched on limb of Ocean River – sea

where all the streams converge.  Look now, Henry :

you’ll see a figure for enwombed Man – a butterfly

entombed – whence Melchizedek from prism flies.

Again she raised her hexmiroir, green-rimmed

with copper rust.  I looked.  My sight grew dim,

obscured by cloud... fine rain across my eyes...

& then I saw him, through the pre-dawn haze.  An

old man, limping bravely toward me... in slouch hat,

with white birch cane.  Gosh – is it really you, Walt?

I exclaimed.  The same, he said, smiling lazily (a

blade of wheat seesawing from his lips).  I’ve come

to give you a dab of bardic courage, boy.  Cosmic

Union’s the nation we maintain : an epithalamic

verse revives the universe.  Just as I hummed

sweet pity over writhing youngsters, thrust

my hand into their wounds, to heal – to turn

blocked hornets of flint to water-myrrh – so

each deed of heartfelt care is bound in trust

to Everlivingness : her regal token, promised here

on earth (who’s omnipresent as the summer grass).

The door’s agape!  Torn off, unhinged! – yes, yes,

O sage of stone Jack Diamond Elk!  Dance!  Cheer!

    5.31.12

Lanthanum 11.11

11

The World War I Monument was dedicated on the eleventh anniversary

of the Armistice on November 11, 1929  – Historic American Buildings Survey, 1987

my subject is war, and the pity of war

Toward dusk, a rich mauve-rose light filtered

from the western ridge through Providence.

A breeze ruffled leaves of the immense pin-

oak, where I hid with my elusive shepherdess

(Natasha).  The town was blossoming before us

in its mixing-bowl of streams : violet shadows

welded with gray stones, the whine of cars;

the bay, the ocean shantied in the distance.

A spirit penetrates this place, Natasha said; but

how will they reckon who girds their dream?

Look here.  She opens up a kind of prism –

doubled, hexagonal – crystalline.  I angle out

through the lens.  Like a sea-kaleidoscope

the city coalesced in a clerestory (swelled,

suffused with lambent mist).  Its sevenfold

spectrum rayed from each dewlet, opening

in blinding jets toward an echo-arch, far

overhead... where the evening star (calm,

sweet, peaceful) seemed to send this balm

sailing back to the earth.  You hardly know

your town, do you?  Natasha smiled.  This civitas,

this union, elegant grace & equilibrium – all this

is vaulted up in sacrifice.  I looked to the river’s

edge.  The fluted pillar of the Monument rose

to pierce the perimeter of Providence –

where lady Victory remembers time-worn,

bone-tired streets... nurses a wounded crown

of blistered plows.  Let the Requiem commence.

5.30.12