Epithalamium: Fourth Hour

With snake-like charm, the Kickapoo meanders
The driftless virginity of Wisconsin;
This place which faced the stare-down of glaciers
Remains geology’s lode and touchstone.
The tannic river mellows morning’s mint
And gives a golden hint
To sunlight’s fuller karat. There’s a ring
Of lichen on every pine – promises meant
To be kept by time. The seasons bring
Their own gifts to your marriage, and the land
Gives your own promise ground –
Surprising bluffs aproned in shady green shaws.
The fields raise up suddenly all there – then
Drop to valleys of morning mist where crows
Are calling, rusty, raw,
Carving cold through fog, giving voice to this –
That antiphonic nature scales the keys of grace.

Epithalamium: Third Hour

Indicative bees punctuate fields, fed
On sunlight’s imperative, becoming force
Enough to tender rain’s subjunctive mood...
Might there be an interrogative universe
Without love? The answers are in full flower,
Deep among the clover
Cropped up, nodding to August's morning sun –
Purling petaled heels with names: Virgin’s Bower
Borders day with Canada-Columbine
And Dame’s Rocket shoots her perennial works
Along wood’s edge where Flax
Is patching Dutchman’s Breeches and weaving
The Touch-Me-Nots to tease the Nipplewort;
Forget-Me-Not is Adder’s-Mouth’s retort
To Lamb’s Quarters and Pearly Everlasting.
But Jack-in-the-Pulpit’s sermon summons us
To Grass-in-Parnassus:
“Gather bouquets and boutonnières for this –
That nature best pronunciation key is grace.”

Epithalamium: Second Hour

Wisconsin is middle earth to a child
Where cock’s crow breaks upon a day, excused
For putting night away – a memory filed
For later. For now, the first light, diffused
Amid the woods, shakes dreams from crotch and limb
To saunter off to tomb
And toy box. Today is a day for brides,
For men to man the clocks at sunlight’s climb
From earth’s coffin-lid. At such times time glides
Through house and hall like wafting coffee’s strength;
And labor’s heft and length
Are measured shadows swallowed up by noon.
By second cups of morning, though, you wake
To courtship’s end. From now on you will take
Just enough sugar to sweeten your spoon
Of cream as light will join
This day that gives itself. It comes to this –
Nature opens up its light with the key of grace.

Epithalamium: First Hour

(after Spenser )

For Omar and Miriam: August 28, 2004,
Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo

…strong nerves are an advantage
and accurate wrist-watches too
can be a great help.
-W.H. Auden

It used to be you could call up a muse
And laugh a while; or cry in the same breath
To think another, less faithful, would refuse
To comment on the marriage of life and death –
Antony gulled by Cleopatra’s asp,
Heaving breasts, a last gasp.
The modern muse phones in her funeral wreath
With a voice vodka-curried to a rasp.
It used to be Greeks owned heaven and earth
And wedded the twin realms for οἰ πολλοί
In pleasure's coupled joy.
This day, though, sisters replace muses to serve
Greens, breads, meats – all brought in well-wrought vessels.
My friends, marriage never fights, but wrestles
To find its comic feasts. These days, the nerve
You need the tragic graces hold in reserve.
So I pray this poem comes just to this –
That nature sings best when tuned to the key of grace.

Epilogue

In the beginning was the word…

Carl von Linne had changed his name in time
Arriving much as Abram did at Ab-
Raham, lord of kingdoms, families, and phylum,
Leaving order and to each class a job:
Vindicating Adam’s utter Babel
Of general sinfulness with special grace.
Note Abram’s stamen and Sarah’s pistil:
Love is the word at root that’s left their trace.
Incarnated in each renewed season,
Nativity thus digs for its own dying.
Now, too, these numbered names have sounded song
Even as Eve’s woman joins Adam’s man –

Justifying the names of everything –
Creatures deeded God’s creative dominion.

Zingiber & Zinnia

Carry my bones with you out of this place.

Zingiber, you edge the east of history
In the cornucopia of your root,
Navigating empire, traversing spice route,
Gaining universal appeal – this story
Is your real horn of plenty: medieval
Belief would see the source of your descent
Exalted in Edenic exodus, sent,
Reprieved and rescued far east of evil.

Zinnia, you edge the west of mystery…
In the asterix of your desert bloom
New worlds of color set their suns in starry
Nativity: Cortez among las mariposas,
In God’s garden plot he saw Adam
Add Joseph's name to the new genesis.

Zizyphus Jujuba

…he drew up his feet upon the bed, and died.
And he was gathered to his people.

Zizyphus jujuba, your fruit is born
In infant innocence, nestled within
Zion’s crowning hills – a tender flesh to thorn,
You yoke your destiny to the branch of men.
Passions dulled by your fruit, the Lotus Men
Hibernate in dreams, eschewing your thorn,
Undulating in a slow reign within
Souls that die to life and live to be born.

Jacob nominated death’s land at last,
Ushering in the end of the beginning
Just as Adam brought Eden’s conclusion
Under the guise of fruit with thorn that would last
Beyond his children’s fathers by beginning
A generation without conclusion.