Mt. Rushmore

Owls hang in the night air
between the visages of Washington, Lincoln
The Rough Rider, and Jefferson; and coyotes
mourn the theft of sacred ground.


A cenotaph becomes the tourist temple
of the profane.






                        Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
                                lakotah poetess

spring fling

     

          The Garden

                           David Solway

 

      Lyke as the Culver on the bared bough
          —Spenser, Amoretti, 89

 Under the pale lilac bush
moorgrass whispers from its hidden bed
to the monarch-bearing milkweed,
and the plump robin freighting
the berry-cumbered honeysuckle
whistles the secret to the chickadee
darting between the hedges.

Laden with epistles
a tumult of bluets and fritillaries
prints the air with messages
as mullein leans its slender stalk
to confide in a tigering of bees
busy with their blacks and golds
and the honey of their living.

Even purple loosestrife
races across the lower meadow
panicked by the yellow trumpets
of the brassy, orchestral lilies,
and the wood dove creaks with fright
for the cover of the branches.

Now the hummingbird,
milking petalled flocks of lavenders and pinks,
stalls in mid-maneuver
while the double-decker dragonfly
in the aftermath of rain
hovers by the spires of the bull thistle,
murmuring its encyclicals
of desire and regret
for the wet and shimmering kingdom.

For the news has spidered out
in the cold opulence of its silks
to every corner of the garden:
to where the tender seed heads
of the ditch-green sedges
purple toward the future
and the ovals of the rosehips
ripe with orpiment
pour their hearts out in the plummeting sun.

For the word has gone out
to all the tremulous creatures
beneath the parable of the white pines
dropping their soft sickles
in russet masses to the ground.
The word has gone out
in the colloquies of those who love the garden
that in the radiant vacancies they inhabit
there is only the gardener
to love them back.

.......

boethius reconsidered

      "The Alley Violinist,"




                
                                 by Robert Lax

if you were an alley violinist
and they threw you money
from three windows
and the first note contained
a nickel and said:

 

when you play, we dance and
sing,

 

signed
a very poor family

 

and the second one contained
a dime and said:

 

I like your playing very much,

 

signed
a sick old lady

 

and the last one contained
a dollar and said:

 

beat it,

 

would you:
stand there and play?
beat it?
walk away playing your fiddle?

Robert Lax was a college buddy of Thomas Merton
they remained friends through life
....he was a very free-spirited catholic


























......

in bucolicus mortem

Komm in den totgesagten park und schau: 
       Der schimmer ferner lächelnder gestade,
        Der reinen wolken unverhofftes blau
Erhellt die weiher und die bunten pfade.


Dort nimm das tiefe gelb, das weiche grau
Von birken und von buchs, der wind ist lau,
Die späten rosen welkten noch nicht ganz,
Erlese küsse sie und flicht den kranz,


Vergiss auch diese lezten astern nicht,
Den purpur um die ranken wilder reben
Und auch was übrig blieb von grünem leben
Verwinde leicht im herbstlichen gesicht.

Come to the park they say is dead, and view 

       The shimmer of the smiling shores beyond,       

The stainless clouds with unexpected blue       

Diffuse a light on motley path and pond.


The tender grey, the burning yellow seize
Of birch and boxwood, mellow is the breeze.
Not wholly do the tardy roses wane,
So kiss and gather them and wreathe the chain.


The purple on the twists of wilding vine,
The last of asters you shall not forget,
And what of living verdure lingers yet,
Around the autumn vision lightly twine.

       Stefan George    ( +  1933)


       trans.  -  Carol North Valhope


















..














      

GANDALF'S SONG OF ARAGORN

All that is gold does not glitter,   
        Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,   
        Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
 From the ashes a fire shall be woken,       
    A light from the shadows shall spring;
 Renewed shall be blade that was broken,   
        The crownless again shall be king.








                                     JRR Tolkein








.....

some of sanctitys' requirements

The Other Place

By  William Logan 

     

The leaves had fallen in that sullen place,

but none around him knew just where they were.

The sky revealed no sun. A ragged blur

remained where each man's face had been a face.

Two angels soon crept forth with trays of bread,

circling among the lost like prison guards.

Love is not love, unless its will affords

forgiveness for the words that are not said.

Still he could not believe that this was Hell,

that others sent before him did not know;

yet, once his name and memory grew faint,

it was no worse, perhaps, than a cheap motel.

It is the love of failure makes a saint.

He stood up then, but did not try to go.

.....

by Adrian C. Louis

Manifest Destination




A hot wind curls the leaves
and chases the dogs digging
deep into the dry soil.
I live in the gut of the bright failure
called America. I live in
this hell named Nebraska.
It's one hundred and seven today
and grasshoppers from outer
space are dancing in my brain.
The air-conditioner is broke
so I run a tub of cold water
and submerge every half hour.
There's a wet trail from the bath
to the couch and nearby fan.
The air is heavy with grain dust.
The "wheaties" are up from Oklahoma
with their caravan of combines.
I crave winter. I want a blizzard
that blinds me to my fellow man.
These are my dark times.
Every other day I grieve for the me
that was and every man or woman
I see fills me with contempt.
Nine out of ten Skins in town are
hang-around-the-fort welfare addicts.
Every weekend their violence
and drunken wretchedness
fills the county jail, but I'm
far beyond embarrassment because
the white people are even worse.
Varied branches of that inbred, toothless
mountain trash in "Deliverance,"
settled here and now own
the bank and most businesses.
It's undeniably true that these
white people in Cowturdville
could be hillbillies except for
the fact that these are The Plains.

Drive on, rednecks, to the edge
of your flat world and fall
down to a better hell.

Every single thing about this
town is sadly second-rate
and I haven't been laid
in more than two years
and there's this fat lady
with varicose veins who
calls me late at night
and begs me to come over
to her trailer for a drink.
Here, in this Panhandle town,
farm kids speed desperately up
and down the main drag wearing
baseball caps backwards and throwing
gang signs they've seen on the tube
and their parents, glad they're old
and tired, truly believe that
those pictures we're now getting
from Mars have meaning.
As far as I can tell, I'm one of the few
people in Cowturdville who's gone
to college and I often wish I
never had, but Christ on a pogo
stick . . . I think I'm starting to like
it here in this American heartland.

Thunderheads are forming
and the sweet-ass rain
of forgiveness is in the air.
























.......