Ronald Johnson

Tree
into the World,
Man
the chosen
Rose out of Chaos:
Song

Thunder amid held daffodil,
the hills of yellow celandine in sudden sun
electrum
"when the light walks."

When the light walks, clockwise, counterclockwise,
atoms memorize the firefly's wing
silhouette twenty-foot elm leaf

Aship, reel in fountainhead
enclosure of roses
skies indigo, gold moon

Omphalos triumphant
“only connect”
end, point of beginning

of old, apotheosis
chandelier fond du lac

I

I hear you are whispering there O stars of heaven,
O suns—O grass of graves. . .
If you do not say anything how can I say anything?

Let us tunnel

the air
(as a mole’s green galleries)
toward the ultimate

I

Also reputed to be golden, Quivira:


Cibola, unknown
to Coronado, meant ‘buffalo’

to the Indians, but onward, to El Dorado, ‘The Gilded One’,


a country where
boats were incrusted with gold, where
golden bells hung from trees

As the morning advanced the sun became bright and warm, cloudless, calm, serene. About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention—a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, & continuing, without any interruption, till the close of the day . . . There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the highest part of our down in hot summer days, and that is a loud audible humming of bees in the air, though not one insect is to be seen . . . In a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales and hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should abound. Many we have discovered that return a tunable ring of bells, or the melody of birds; but we were still at a loss for a polysyllabical, articulate echo, till a young gentleman, who had parted from his company in a summer walk, and was calling after them, stumbled upon a very curious one in a spot where it might least be expected . . . We procured a cuckoo, and cutting open the breastbone and exposing the intestines to sight, found the crop lying as mentioned above. This stomach was large and round, and stuffed hard, like a pincushion, with food, which upon nice examination, we found to consist of various insects, such as small scarabs, spiders, and dragon-flies; the last of which, as they were just emerging out of the aurelia state, we have seen cuckoos catching on the wing. Among this farrago also were to be seen maggots, and many seeds, which belonged either to gooseberries, currants, cranberries, or some such fruit . . .

quincunx of succulents
subtle colors and forms
succinct in dust

appropriate the pot
assigned, set each
for spill into Other

always my core dream
winding a garden

shambles this way
antipodean being
come full circle
sparks in darkness
lightning’s eternal return
flipped the ecliptic

for Patricia Anderson “To do as Adam did”

Today I saw the word written on the poplar leaves.

It was ‘dazzle’. The dazzle of the poplars.


As a leaf startles out


from an undifferentiated mass of foliage,

so the word did from a leaf—


A Mirage Of The Delicate Polyglot

inventing itself as cipher. But this, in shifts & gyrations,

grew in brightness, so bright