...

[[ the myth before the myth of Hyperborea ]]
.
the soot-flecked sun

shot from its spleen a cluster
....of dried-out star thistles,
feldspar dust [7 magnified grains]

--was on the front lawn gathering-up
broken haploids with your skirt, watched
........them crackle into tiny silvers--

.........they painted the lawn
.........with glistening muscles,
.....atrophic palms, they of:


--silkweed, latex-lathered
--a bellowing organum
--polyphonies

& de-harmonized [to the winds,
the winds well-aimed geometry--
to the hungry winging latitude all sky-borne
...................... & fluid-with


of honeybees crystallized-- hymnodies--yes,
hymnodies of space with orreries flung about
..................the gardens to doily-blot
.....drippings of starburst sapped-out


WE PAINTED the land paean, the palmettes
each orthodox tapestry votive & parti-
......................colored, then a deeper
................ isolation


.............................. *

a frenzied child--with veins to the wind--
.......................picks up a canary’s moan
where shadowed prisms of bodies
....are harnessed
40 feet below a frozen river,

....................*

I search [the faceless Sun God says]
where ill-bred saplings
frost layers supine; sweet,
other muted tang of lips brine-
.............encrusted, grit
sediment airy--no, not airy--fickle
bones of malnourishment
.............shaped to an icy divide


*

then sparrow romanticized
..........bough [again] wound
bone up--the snapping thin


.................two

....of salt & angels past
.............rectitude