refractive

I

brassy-toed, compass-pointed, magic-leagued I cross the void,
a rider on the great circling sky,
measurer of meridians, shuttler in starry tapestry,
vectored in trajectory and in wish fettered, metal-feathered
in eridanus a gliding light, sliding sight;
and where a cluster of cloud, a helix of cumuli limns
the island on cerulean space, fin-free from vertical perspectives I fall:
I find you familied, green~growing here,
I slake me of fruit, of feast, of dance,
discourse affectionate and mellow mirth,
the tropic smiles of tribe and stripe,
a fountain-fill of nourishings and renewal.

II

I skip across the cloud-tops of my thought
accumulus of cabbage-blossom cauliflower silk
myriad of mirage and murmured melody.
heterodyned in heart-beat I ride the pulse,
the winking query of sine, a fount,
a kin to wire whispers, ether nudges or nuance,
code-stopped pip-stippled pipings in the nascent night
pink tinklings and hissings in meandering snow
shimmers and haltings in the brassen glow.
I sift I shift I drift
I run a magnet bubble
gap and thread
reasons and choice
justnesses and adjustings
fastnesses and stream
context and catharsis
and a mercurial smear of ego, a tear, attritus,
rags for flags in the bowels of a dream.
but o the joy of hand and eye and course!
always the circling circling horizon, eternal firmament,
and the calling stars!

III

stork-still and unique upon this single rail I stand and eye
the mocking convex graticules, hunched horizons, and pendentive hills,
inches on a strand and painted sky; prism through prism
peer, and latticed all the mirrors echo me pentagonal,
where am I framed if I am everywhere:
seduced by moon, the distant sun, did not I hear
the very sigh of motion, the spell of brain and limb,
the murmured pause, the lapping on the cosmos brim?
many-prisoned in pyramids of time, in crystal beams,
the watersheds of agonies, moraines of tears, bleeding in a thousand suns,
the universe poured through my heart and limbs and dreams,
and, lux luminis, vanished on a midnight's rim.

krm

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