O Again: 8. Virgo

O Again


8.
O Virgo (the other one)

O Virgo.
O Dike, warning us 
and fleeing to the hills.
O Atargatis, Erigone.
(Look it up.)

O Spica,
Alpha Virginis,
Virgo’s grain, 
not eclipsing,
mutually interacting.

O Virgo:
Silver Earth sign.
Could you anyhow
be the Mother we hail,
still full of grace?

O Again: 7. Emmanuel

O Again

--£…≥÷¢* 


7.
O Emmanuel (already)

O God-with-us
in NICU bassinets
and nursing homes
and truck cabs
and warehouses.

God-with-us-now
on battlefields
and bombshelters
in churches
and congress (even there).

God-already-with-us
dashing through the snow
on city sidewalks
in the bleak mid-winter.
O. That’s all. Just O.



*(cat typing. Why not here, too?)

O Again: 5. O Oriensast

O Again

5.
O Oriens (my favorite)

Oriens. O Oriens.* 
Our Star in the East
today rises as far South
as she goes. Tomorrow
she’ll cross the line
to lengthen our days.

O Oriens, O Morning Star—
Come and enlighten.
Sun of Fiery Dawnings—
Sun of Rooting Bulbs—
Sun of Joyful openings—
O Oriens, come.


*(Just say it. It does nice things in the mouth.)

O Again: 3. O Clavis

O Again

4.
O Clavis

O Key, O keys.
I lost my Irish grandfather’s keys 
on a sidewalk in the snow.
O necklace of skeleton keys.
But I have his broken clock,
and photos of his children
glued in a celluloid box.

O keys, lost keys.
I was afraid of Opa who spoke
Russian and German and Polish
but whose English was remote. 
I have his silver and porcelain
wine tray painted with plums. 
O lost Clavis, O Radix lost.

O Again: 3. O Radix

O AGAIN

3.
O Radix (misread)

O Root.
Before coffee, I read:
Root of Jesse standing as a sign 
among the peonies. 
Huh.

People, not peonies.
Had peonies once.
Tried to do them in
because botrytis blight.
They kept sprouting.

Radix, root, radish, etc.
If you plant a grafted apple tree
and bury the graft by mistake, 
the original takes over. 
Radical thought.

O AGAIN: 2. Adonai Reversed

O AGAIN  


2.
O Adonai (reversed)

Lord of Might.
O my, how we crave one.
Somebody to fix it all up.
Do It Yourself
is awful hard work.

Giver of Law.
So much simpler 
to follow along.
Obey the rules. 
Do what we’re told.

Lord of Might? Jesus.
Consider  
the trees around here:
every year they burn 
and are not consumed.

THE ANTIPHONS RETURN: 1. O Sapienta

O Again


1.
O Sapienta (Fifty Years later)

Holy Wisdom sets things
in order. If there is an order
to set. If there are indeed
things. Moreover, what
does it mean to be wise?

Premise: Holy Wisdom might
show us the path of knowledge.
Why would that be a path and how,
precisely, might it be revealed?
Furthermore, what can be known?

O Sapienta: Holy Wisdom. 
A good night to conceive
a philosopher on an unheated 
waterbed in a cold bedroom.
We didn’t have a clue.

Words again: a Story

tunnel

make 

gasp

pound

wave

turkey

blow

haze

 

A STORY

Our grandchildren found a baby bird 

in the driveway. 

What is it?

Where is its Mommy? 

 

In this hazy time 

when every little sorrow strikes a blow,

when the news pummels and pounds,

what is Daddy to do with this scrap of life

gasping in his hand?

 

The mouth of the dark tunnel

has narrowed again.

So many mommies, daddies,

so many lost, so much is lost,

and what sense can we make?

I used to tell myself I was a poet.

 

It’s a little turkey. 

Let’s put it in the long grass by the brook

where sometimes we see them pass. 

We’ll put some corn around for them to find.

Now wave bye-bye.

One way or another, this will resolve.

 

We saw them the next day

he told me. A parade.

Two hens with six poults

and a tom and a hen with one poult

scurrying between them.

The kids agreed that it all worked out fine.

 

We can tell ourselves stories, can’t we?

They all lived happily. . . 

Can’t we tell ourselves stories like that? 

Words again: Oh, art!

arch

sinew

fiddle

shadow

tremble

dance

one

art

peach

vain

indoors

hurry

Oh, art! 

Art is one—Oh yes. 

We do not dream in vain.

 

Do not hurry. There is no need.

Tune your fiddle to the canvas, 

 

chisel a marble dance.

Dress your singers in peaches,

 

and tremble in the shadow of a word.

The arch is wide; the road is wide.

 

Out doors is all, there is no in.

We who make art bind bone to bone 

 

by sinew after sinew.

We do not dream in vain.

Words again: Identity

—rye

—eclipse

—identity

—fumble

—gravel 

—sunlight

—cake

—please

—eddies

—release

IDENTITY

A child crouches

in a sunlit field.

A fighter pilot’s wife can’t sleep. 

A new mother cannot walk.

 

I am a whirlpool—

an eddy of identity

where a complexity

of currents meet. 

 

I am a layer-cake of scars:

Wry neck and fumbly fingers.

Knees marked with gravel.

Nose repelled by the scent of booze.

 

Nevertheless. 

As the pummeled moon

still glows in our shadow,

I am eclipsed but whole.

 

I am pleasing to topsoil and stones,

to bears and birds and trees.

I have been released 

by every disappointed god.