Avalon and Ingomar
(after two paintings by Valerie Jaudon)

Light glances off
the crosspieces
of a lattice or trellis
gateway or arch
the entrance
to a bronze world
or prison of silver
interlacing patterns
welcome or forbid,
round arches, sharp
corners clamor
rise and die

Celtic crosses, vines
of sliver, a labyrinth,
an ocean woven
in tapestry, cross-stitch,
braid, a myriad eyes
or vulvae, exes and ohs
form a novitiate’s cell,
a basket or castle,
thistle or vessel,
bower or cloister.

Apple Trees
(after a painting by Mary Evalyn Stringer)

Here in the orchard
        under the shade of
               intertwining branches
light is the fruit
        the sweet crunch of flesh
in the curve of trunk and limb
        the air is red, gold
               and green delicious
the earth and sky
        weave leaf and stem
twilight peace descends
        or daybreak wafts perfume,
Götterdämmerung or maiden dawn
        gloaming, aurora

Protozoan Transmogrification
(after a painting by Eugenia Summer)

Even in the darkness, there is color
        microscopic, cellular, the catalyst
of change, psychotropic, psychedelic
        nuclei of books and plants
shellfish, ova, magic
        school-bus spaceships,
libraries of vascular tissue
        art galleries of tulip fields
        or caterpillars and trilobites
centipedes, stars and suns.
        Once the transmogrification
begins at the protozoan level
        there is no stopping
its proliferation
        in music, waves of rhythm
        reds, greens, yellows, blues,
flesh pink, searing white —
an inner world blossoms