Dogwood
—Anonymous Photo
BLAKE CAME TO ME
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
Blake came to me
this morning
I'm rising early
with Nasturtium
on my surrealist sax
sensing a perfume glow
covering April's
Weeping Willows
on crisp leafy fields
Blake is pouring through
his art guidebooks
as the world opens to us
in a new day's beginning,
a poet has hid
in Elysian fields
all night by a tiny fountain
under brambles of birch
feeling clover and pine combs
on his body which is filled
with notes of pocket verse
against a morning sun
so ripe in anonymity
as silver kisses on riffs
and augmented interpretations
rebound by smooth jazz
dreaming truths
only Blake interpreted for me
as played by four violins
in a Warsaw cathedral
when peace has been declared
from blue bells of angels
at a children's chorus
of Hebrew melody and memory
reading from the Book of Kings
in a mystical prayer
of a penance
as dawn spirals to love
at every chance meeting
among all natural things,
praising the night's wind
under this lighthouse
scullers are out early
here on the river beds
having a crew race
along seething wild roses
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
Blake came to me
this morning
I'm rising early
with Nasturtium
on my surrealist sax
sensing a perfume glow
covering April's
Weeping Willows
on crisp leafy fields
Blake is pouring through
his art guidebooks
as the world opens to us
in a new day's beginning,
a poet has hid
in Elysian fields
all night by a tiny fountain
under brambles of birch
feeling clover and pine combs
on his body which is filled
with notes of pocket verse
against a morning sun
so ripe in anonymity
as silver kisses on riffs
and augmented interpretations
rebound by smooth jazz
dreaming truths
only Blake interpreted for me
as played by four violins
in a Warsaw cathedral
when peace has been declared
from blue bells of angels
at a children's chorus
of Hebrew melody and memory
reading from the Book of Kings
in a mystical prayer
of a penance
as dawn spirals to love
at every chance meeting
among all natural things,
praising the night's wind
under this lighthouse
scullers are out early
here on the river beds
having a crew race
along seething wild roses
Dogwood and Hyacinth
by orange blossoms
on the vacant shore,
we hear awakened nests
along murmuring barns
of robin red breasts
with gritty song bird tongues
waiting to be fed
by their watchful mothers
and down the dusty road
are forest bears
weighed down
by giving birth as a bride
here at a feathery dawn
not every poet hears the chant
over my prayer bench
with angels on my eyelids
as St. Joan sings to us
with a simple French chorus
telling us of her vision
with her loving visage
she also sees holy things
at a future time of dove's peace,
having succumbed
to wanting a walled-in life
of Tom Merton's contemplation,
yet in a benumbed spring fever
I rise at an early hour
here in my Rose of Sharon glen
by Marigold and Passion Flower
where I play a magic flute
imagining a woodland twig
is fastened to my fingers
yet there is the loveliness
of a tune that emerges
by the butterfly springs
through God's thorn bushes
and blood bright Lavender
hearing the mystical laughter
of a water-bearer song
from the deepest sleep
of sweet William Blake
who is just outside
our misty glass window sill
if we will only listen.
by orange blossoms
on the vacant shore,
we hear awakened nests
along murmuring barns
of robin red breasts
with gritty song bird tongues
waiting to be fed
by their watchful mothers
and down the dusty road
are forest bears
weighed down
by giving birth as a bride
here at a feathery dawn
not every poet hears the chant
over my prayer bench
with angels on my eyelids
as St. Joan sings to us
with a simple French chorus
telling us of her vision
with her loving visage
she also sees holy things
at a future time of dove's peace,
having succumbed
to wanting a walled-in life
of Tom Merton's contemplation,
yet in a benumbed spring fever
I rise at an early hour
here in my Rose of Sharon glen
by Marigold and Passion Flower
where I play a magic flute
imagining a woodland twig
is fastened to my fingers
yet there is the loveliness
of a tune that emerges
by the butterfly springs
through God's thorn bushes
and blood bright Lavender
hearing the mystical laughter
of a water-bearer song
from the deepest sleep
of sweet William Blake
who is just outside
our misty glass window sill
if we will only listen.
________________________
—Medusa, with thanks to B.Z. Niditch for his fine contribution to our Sunday!
