Eldena

2.

Reverence turns to imitation

A crow plucks a grub

from decayed bark,

Thus childlike delight

rises

–unlike sleepiness,

nor wine–

from the shell of thought.

The hand moves

tracing the immortal signatures

tracing trails of bees,

tracing ivy-clung walls,

and dotting red poppies

upon rows of yellow wheat.

3.

He says you are never not broken

and smiles as I try to make sense.

Of how light becomes color,

signal comes from noise

and consciousness wakes from matter.

His poems

reveal a effortless effort

addressed to the hidden, microscopic worlds

behind ordinary stones and pebbles

small things cast in great arches of time.

If you touch one thing, he says,

you touch everything.

I wondered once if he was crazy

or worse a joker and a thief

but there was no doubt every time

he came to visit me I felt more alive

richer and wiser.

Could he be the old man

buried here?

Or is he somewhere on that journey

the eye takes

as it scans the sunset,

from chariot clouds

to nightfall.

When I heard him speak

through Kerouac’s lips:

“accept loss forever.”

I beheld a single symbol

drew it large

and buried it

in the soil.

5.

The silver fountain flows;

again the magic circle is drawn.

I sleep tonight on grass

and dream of poppies and oaks.

A dream halved with the ghost

that gave Eldena its portrait

In the east, dawn silhouettes the ruins

And the crow flies