Mantra for Burying an Imperious Sympathy

Streaks of every blue
are running through the first intimations of an
early August afternoon;

rapturous Sunday, unerring as it pulls us
from ourselves, as it does,
each time, from time.

The mercurial blue,
not of Sunday but of
some larger time,
conspires to show me
a vision upon its shifting canvas
and pull me again from
the vibrant day to
a melancholic blue.

Reflected in its turning surfaces,
or perhaps shimmering a measure below them –

blue alone can drive me to madness
with visions of joy,
of tantalizing futures
made sweet and impossible
by the mysteries of blue.


Armed as I am in
olive’s chain-link sorrow
and the Olympian regalia
of Sunday-time, I smile
at the blue, as if
I knew these lies like
those of a trickster friend,
as if I were old as
blue itself on ageless Sunday,
and affixed that streaked veil in my mind:

“Your visions of happiness
are deep and beautiful,
but they are not
my own.”