"Invocation" by Ann Lauterbach

INVOCATION

Speak, Mistress Quaker, a parable waits from which
blessings issue, conditionally, as in a hunt, a possible hearing
wherein the manifest flirts, beguiling, almost at home.
Speak on, Troubled Specter, as in a calm
carefree silence whose message embraces its
quick.  Seed that, so
the trail is viable, literal, glad
as in love's timing: tick-tock luck.
A siege of incipient cures! A brevity so enhanced
the Pilgrim finds her way along the path of red berries
through the wild into the dilated Spot where following ends and begins
and ends again.  You were in a tale, a choice you had not made,
whose dim constellation gathers dew on the sleeve of hours,
the iteration of just cause, saving one against the others, as in a court.
Be kind, Mistress of Woes, Hooligan of Ages.  Be a Treaty we sign.
Chafe against brittle nudity, swallow the excellent potion, remain among thieves.
Remain among thieves, steal Advent from avarice, dark from idiot sight.


                                                                         to Bernadette Mayer



Source of the text - Lauterbach, Ann.  On a Stair.  New York: Penguin Books, 1997, p. 85.

Bourguignomicon: As if spoken by high priestess to goddess commissioning new work from a sacred Spot, the poem commands truth then peace then Christlikeness.