Oratorio

I remember a time ago
Across a sea
a land
Huge sea turtles
Crawling slowly up the sand
My soft shell
Pierced by sharp memories

I hear a mournful melody
I know
From a Pfennig to a blue note
The ebb and flow
Building to a grand finale
A thunderous beginning
Of an end


Ten thousand kidney beans
Strung in a line
Broadway
Sunset and Vine


The flicker
And the dim
When Cardinal Cushing went to Lhaspur
To council an erring saint
Lim
“Forego your paganism!”
And so I remember
(The pagan blood in me rebels)
I linger on the rim