Kindling

When I was a young Redbirds fan, bouncing from coast to coast, I learned that I could pick up KMOX, Jack Buck, and Mike Shannon just about anywhere at night, though never in California.

When once I was a child in the west I was looking east,
and when a child in the east I looked west,
ever aiming through that Gateway;

and I again was on my road west
when Lady and I were again children,
basking in the wonders of commerce and truth and trivia
in fashion magazines and such vivid things,

in a moment without motion,

I looked up to feel a warm breeze from the eastern ocean,
but there was time passing in a vision

of a Gateway
rising on the horizon
over the River I could never cross completely

and in the Gateway beckoned a City
and Lady greeted the City—warmly
as though he were expected
as though they were old friends
and I followed her through the Gateway
and I cannot cross that River
and she sat in the lap of the City
she kissed the City
and before my eyes she became the City
and those eyes last saw her in the Gateway
and I continued my steps west
and I thought how strange that City had always been so friendly
how the City and I had always been such friends
but now she is the City and I cannot recognize him

And years from home I am touring Topeka
Columbia Lawrence Independence
pre dawn hours thinking on the shape of things
side walks car lots front yards thinking on the shape of things
not half sleeping in the park dodging cops and moon and
dreams that she is gazing at the sun
setting on the Pacific
that she is squinting for my silhouette on the horizon
and I am not in California
I need to see the sunrise

and her Gateway

and think upon the shape of things.

phone (fon) Informal—n. A telephone.
—v. phoned, phoning. To call or transmit by
telephone.

Please accept my apology
for having stooped so low,
resorting to quotations.
Take heart: I don’t cite authority lightly,
but that phenomenon that’s femi-nine—
ambiguity demands one be specific
with one’s sources of information.

I’m sure it’s nothing there’s just a
minor misalignment between the words
and their intention.

Surely it’s a simple matter of definition.

Rest assured, no sooner had she spoken it was written,
and mapped to every match in Webster’s latest
collegiate edition.

Here be where the visitors
seek advisement in these affairs,
among the natives who—
having heard a word more often—
might be a little more familiar
with words whose sounds are similar,
having only sound in common.

Verses celebrating Daena, that celestial maiden of ancient Iran; symbol of faith and conscience. … This is largely plagiarized from the Vendidad (Fargard 19) and Hadhokht Nask, employing some degree of arbitrary license.

♦—♦—♦

At the end of the third night,
when the dawn appears,
it seems to the soul of the faithful one
as though he were delivered
amidst plants and aromas;

it seems as if a wind were blowing from the region of the south,
from the regions of the south, a sweet-scented wind,
more sweet than any other …

And it seems to the soul of the faithful one
as if he were inhaling that wind into his nostrils,
and he thinks: ‘Whence does that wind blow,
that sweet-scented wind … ?’

And it seems to him as though his own Daena
were advancing toward him on that wind,
in the shape of a maiden fair,
bright, white-armed, strong,

tall-formed, high-standing, full-breasted,
beautiful of body, noble, of a glorious seed,
of the size of a maid in her fifteenth year,
as fair as the fairest things in the world.

‘Then comes the beautiful,
shapely, strong and well-formed maid,
with the hounds at her sides,

she who can discern right and wrong,
with great following, happy,
and of high understanding.

And the soul of the faithful one addresses her,
asking: ‘What maid art thou,
who art the fairest maid I have ever seen?’

She answers him: O thou
youth of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds,
of good religion,
I am thine own conscience!

‘Everyone did love thee for that greatness, goodness, fairness, …
strength and freedom from sorrow,
in which thou dost appear to me;

‘And so thou, O youth
of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds,
of good religion!
didst love me for that greatness, goodness, fairness, …
strength, and freedom from sorrow, in which I appear to thee …

‘I was lovely and thou made me still lovelier;
I was fair and thou made me still fairer;
I was desirable and thou made me still more desirable;

‘I was seated at the fore
and thou made me foremost,

‘through this good thought,
through this good word,
through this good deed of thine; …’

© 2008 Dan J. Jensen