In the Garden of the Red Priest
(Vivaldi's Spring Sonnet)

Spring arrives in exultation;
small birds greet her with song
and the brooks, kissed by the breath of Zephyr,
flow and murmur in sweet response.

Dark clouds appear,
announced by lightning and the
reverberation of thunder.
The sky is shrouded in black.

At last, sweet silence
broken by birdsong;
the meadow replies
in a dulcet rustle of leaves and grass.

The goatherd sleeps with
trusted dog by his side;
Nymphs and Shepherds

dance in delight,
led by by the drone of
a double reed pipe
Such is the rejoicing
at the radiant arrival
of Spring.


(Image: Georgia O'Keefe, Red Canna)

Red Priest at Winter

(Vivaldi's Winter Sonnet)

Frozen,

shivering amid

the silvery snow,
we run from the wind’s cutting breath;
we batter and stomp our feet while
our teeth chatter in the bite of the wind.

Later we sit,

contented by the fire,

while rain falls with fury
on one hundred souls outside.

Outside again, we step gently,
cautious lest we fall to the ground.

We dash across the frozen pond
romping and racing
we fall jump up run
until the ice splits.
Inside, we hear the rushing winds
feel them course through the house
in spite of bolted windows
in spite of the locks on our doors.
Sirocco and Boreas,
the wind gods play at war.
This is winter,
but even in winter

we find joy.

(Image: New York Times....Justin's park.)

"Meandering— what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?"

Early spring and
I stumbled upon
the palest pink blossom
bent near
breathed its pristine sweetness
a small bee intruded
a great buzzing and busywork
more bees
a muzzle
amuzzabuzz of bees
a droning over pink

One pale pink blossom
Such optimists…

(Quote: Dennis Kelly)

(Image: Jing Ling)

Doxology for Ares

Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?





They married beneath the linden tree
In the lower south forty-four,
She stood a stoic in her second day dress
As her soldier went off to the war.

O Yes she was washed but he was
bathed and baptized
bathed as he lay in the blood of his comrades
baptized in the blood of his brothers at arms
white blood black blood blue blood grey
no distinction
corpuscles mingled in fearful miscegenation
rivulets flowed into rivers
He was Washed in the Blood of the Lamb.

They laid him beneath the linden tree
In the lower south forty-four,
She stood dry-eyed as she bid him good-bye
Her soldier come home from the war.

Twenty years gone and
a thousand Sunday mornings spent
musing on the meaning of his life
questioning his death
days were her mind would revisit
the conflagration and the green
of the overgrown grass would jeer at her barren heart
while cornflowers mocked the memory
of his blue eyes.

He pledged her his life and days when
the worst came upon her
she envied the ancient Baucis
standing guard beside her groom
her linden roots enfolding bones and blood
absorbing death creating life
So two Shall be One.

She should have found her rest there
Beneath the linden tree,
When they buried her heart in a plain pine box
Gettysburg ‘63.

When the Bridegroom cometh will your robes be white?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Will your soul be ready for the mansions bright?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

(Are You Washed In the Blood, c. Elisha A. Hoffman 1878)
(Image: Geneviève de Nangis-Regnault, published in Paris, 1774 - 1780 as "La Botanique")

The Subversive
1953

"To Whom It May Concern: The white paintings came first; my silent piece came later." - John Cage

October onlookers
discomfited by white--
by shadows rising from white,
by the intrinsic recognition
that the shades of this life
are overtaken too soon
and conquered by those of the After.
Onlookers with Expectations of Beauty
or of an Afternoon’s Escape
instead greet Seven Specters
with fingers pointing
the predictable path to the grave
Seven Specters address
the inevitability of death.
Seven specters and
who understood this primal disquietude?
Fire and ice are so very nice
But oh to be pursued by shadows,
to give into temptation,
surrender to cool white.
The critics shook their heads
only Cage had an answer...
4’33 minutes
of silence.

A most interesting perspective the work of Rauschenberg:

http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue8/erasuregenteel.htm

Leaves of Grass

I’ve seen the ghosts at Gettysburg,
spirits of heroes mown down in their youth
in sacrifice celebrated by Whitman,
the poet prescient in his vision of
atoms and blood-fed grass.

I’ve seen the ghosts at Gettysburg,
young men swept away
by love of country
or love of God,
ghosts whose father mother sister brother
comb the fields in attitudes of desperation,
whose wives and sweethearts
weep away their beauty
as they wander the graves
in search of truth.

I’ve seen the ghosts at Gettysburg
Rebel and Fed
called forth by tears.
They rise through the miasma
greet one another in the haze,
greet one another in blades of grass
atoms mingling,
greet one another as kindred spirits,

as confraternal souls

destined forever to walk

as ghosts at Gettysburg.

(Image: The Battle of Gettysburg, 1884, Paul Dominic Philippoteaux.)

Gettysburg, July 5, 1863

And still they come
mothers and daughters
disconsolate sisters
lovers condemned by moira
to lives of

unbroken spinsterhood

Still they come
carrying armloads of lilacs

burying grief-ravaged faces
in bouquets of hyacinth and fading rosebuds
breathing deeply
as if to obliterate
the stench of death
while the image remains
indelible
Still they come
weeping weaving
sleepwalkers in shock

their dreams
lie dead upon the field

yesterday's bride looks on her beloved

covers her womb

hands unconsciously protecting

her unborn son

from the monstrosity

that would have been his father

can even heaven rejoin

this unholy mess?
Still they come
ears attuned only to the wind
listening for last words
scattered unheard
blistered hands dig through
pockets and dirt
search for memento mori
a blood-stained letter, “My Dearest”

a comb
a scrap of a hymn “Are You Ready?“
desperate hands

dig into hecatomb

seeking only assurance
that their heroes have died
a good death.


(Image: Confederate dead gathered at the edge of Rose Woods for burial, Gettysburg battlefield, July 5, 1863, by Timothy H. O'Sullivan)