Friday, November 14, 2014

HEART THREAD Parts Forty-Nine and Fifty

49.

Once it begins it knows how to go on
true translation treats the syllable as gold intact
apple-mother guide me through your hedges
you know where the house is you left it there for me
a spot of rain upon the lettuce leaf
trying to begin again without taking life
take form instead and stand like Ely’s lantern
eight brave oak trees bear it up
a thousand years the tallest men in England
still stand the mist her little raft comes through
carrying her sick friend home from poetry
where she will hand-heal every inch of him.

                                                           
50.

My father’s cigars is how it begins
Dutch Masters or White Owl Connecticut leaf
no non-tobacco ingredients no paper filler
but I am all paper the flesh become word
no wonder stopped going to church
we never had Sunday school we weren’t real Americans
no town meetings no whitewall tires
Catholics were just Jews with no money
America is still over there across the bay across the river
America’s where the sun goes down
makes me sad to see this dying glory
Amenti across the Nile commonwealth of the dead.