I.
A knotted night, not near and neither far,
Yet dark and distant from this rock it seems,
How once on sand I, cloaked, sat and sparred
The bard whose scar beneath my hat did bleed.

The two-car train did trek down thinning trails,
While misted, glossy morning gathered shape,
‘Round the spear-tip mountains, in the dales,
And on the bosomed, golden, clustered grapes.

And while that soft departing plucked the harp,
The strings that hang between each moment’s gates,
The violence of the storm that was my art
Did of a sudden switch its key and pace.

As the summer made rain of the hail
And crude refined exploded, drove the team,
I swore I saw a fawn dash through the vale
And wished I wer’n’t a gypsy lost for dreams.

II.
How Shenandoah looks like so much hair
Up flung and frozen in a tepid breeze.
How men like Noah do so much on dares.
Hung then I, lonesome, tossed on open seas.

Hung then my avatar, the lucid moon,
A crest, white silhouette, the cold’s receipt,
Reflection of the blue in losing June
To cancerous July left incomplete.

The sweetness in the purple, bristling air
Did mute the upright needles in my seat,
And God revealed itself just over where
The grass was wholly sep’rate from the street.

And we ate breakfast ‘neath a red balloon;
Away were she and I above the trees,
At least but for a moment while the dew
Was quietly collecting on the reeds.



III.
Old Vulcan might be hiding ‘tween the twain
Diverging arrowheads that scrape the sky,
Just where the grey experience of flame
Is scarcely bending light from thirty miles.

Janus’ wicked, four-eyed head is chanting
To Jupiter for rain in ancient chords.
Th’ universe’s humble scribe squats panting
And sweltering inside a can of lords.

But heaven’s hymn is sung inside her name,
The bee who’s never stung but honey pours,
And echoes in the verdant rolling mane
Of outstretched Shenandoah, bounding horse.

Hills of sun-touched grass are all but dancing
For joy at my acknowledging surprise.
Th’ landscape is a choral host entrancing;
Melyssa is the carol’s soft reprise.

02/13/2008

Posted on 02/13/2008
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