To clamor at the gates of the great houses
drawn by their hulk, traces of their skeletons,
belligerence in their very architecture,
standing itself a presumption,
the gall to endure, and with attitude.
Over the city of countless passages,
stories raveling and unraveling—
that is what they do–
monumental mansions cast the spell
of their own solidity, sistence
their implicit provocation.
Confidence and even complacency
descend on us all who loiter
about their stern facades.
Let history, discipline, convention
dictate the terms: plate
techtonics, fractals, polymers, strings,
infrastructures, whatever. Simply, I am.
I am there, somewhere, outer
stations of the 23 trolley, in quest–
of an education.
From the triangular pediments
of the great houses, there issues
a cryptic invitation to learn—
embellished in the tracery of ornament
and portal, the screaming jade of lawns,
latesummer twilight, hue rebounding
on basement worktables
lit up by bankers’ lamps.
Literally dropping under the eaves,
roused from my congenital out
sideness. Inside I shall attain. I shall abide
house rules, self-enforced house-arrest,
brook ambition and even grandeur
because I am here, I desire, I cry.
Certainly a life it has been,
railing at protocols of housekeeping,
the comforts of decorous homes.
Some owned by friends
beyond me forever in graces and amenities,
willing to invite me inside and tolerate,
for a time, my bad jokes,
my affirmative protestations,
this up to certain point:
whichever first gives out,
patience or goodwill.
Insinuated myself
into the state-administered
hospitality of education,
I have–provisionally.
Tracery on the bay window, front-center,
so ornate—would take
more than one lifetime to assimilate
the finitude, adapt apposite
manners and moves,
nuance the idiom.
The portal—its moldings declaim fractal
intricacy, a gem, caressed by fronds, vines
at the outer limits of human craft—
this is the legend inscribed at the opening,
the clearing implanted in the wall,
inset at geometric center of the im
posing mansion’s face. Ground-zero.
Cyclops’ eye-view of knowledge.
To peer out both sides of the window,
same time, beholding plumes of emptiness
feathering from the dual facets
of a calibrated frame.