Home before Dark, Part 5

17.

He was walking Jackson’s beach 

and it was strange to see the real so very clear
rag weed there in autumn that evening

The sun setting on Louse Point.

He bent down 

and the crickets became large

and the noise deafening

became the stars and 

the crickets in the grass

blared Pollock’s tinny voice 

saying, “ the Maud--ern artist--”

Whitman would hold his own,

Paumanok, was Heaven

here in the rushing long lines 

vanishing

the hatch and over hatch

the cricket--

the aurora of the ever flashing

mystery, the net

over everything

flavoring reality

the gems, the moments

flashing

signals

if one paid attention 

to the form 

it might well speak

Jack was full of himself 

there 

at Mountain height, his Box.


18.
His arms upraised 
He felt alive
the overbrimming ideas that 
came from following the orders
and side roads, 

the meander
the drawing recognized in a dream
drawing everywhere
 in the Subway--
a language developing in hieroglyphic form

might well speak
what was this reduction saying
he tried to protect this radical from 
decoration, that’s what he 
meant by the tourist

how could they do that, 
weren’t they worried 
by the square miles 
of dead trees,
a part our hearts

a part of all those already dead
one door had begun to shut 
another opening 
Jack wanted in, not to be left behind, 
silent

the ideas gestated for years
stole years away-- but now 
the years barreled by
an earlier modern, 
he thought

19.
it was good close to the origin
pushing that naturalism to a height
a cycling then
as it falls
comes round

a necessary
fragmentation
a beauty
in the system
that was the beauty of it

Crispin said,
Yes, it was enough in the 
field catching the butterflies
though it seems a joke to Jack now
at this embarrassed distance

We didn't do enough,
Jack packed up the paint box
that bird at the top of the tree 
grasped that moment
and it did-- all exist, turning

to Katsina Face
Picasso owned
he was there at Chimayo too
copying the Christs
he made Gertrude from that

Jack wasnt sure he would ever --
she never sat still enough 
Crispin thought the landscape 
looked sad.
there was a silence, and depth,

20.
in that heat 
the thunderstorms rumbling 
still far, the lightning 
in the darkening sky.
Achilles Black 

in the Green extreme
The reduction 
Crispin sought, Jack related to a 
structure He’d made in the landscape
the mountain

simplified phase
of moon
and summer’s night
thoughts of winter’s
crystaline-- 

 kind of Asian meander
as Satie played on the radio
and silhouetted trees made a strobe effect
on his face
silently skipping

compared to that memory of Suzie’s 
snowflake in the air shaft
a bluebird flies through and
a leaf twirls between fingers
amazed

these metaphorical gods 
all Crispin had-- or wanted
ThE BluE GreeN OrB
what more?
in the eternal zooming of space

racing ahead to look back at the 
steady blaze of exuberance
here on the edge of wild 
Arkansas, and Texas, and into 
the spotted hills