Gate of Jaffa
i/iii.
the bible will always be enigmatic
about it, saying only
that David took the city.
is it like Joshua at
Jericho? does he circle
the city and blow
a trumpet, a joyful noise
unto the lord that pierces
and cracks his walls of Zion?
the choice of Jerusalem
is political; it is not yet the most
holy city, not
until David brings the ark
of the covenant inside
the walls from Kireath-Jearim and Solomon
builds the Temple Mount. still,
it
is holy, as all cities used to be: building is
a sanctity, an imitation of god.
ii/iii.
the forms were shaped––this was done
irrationally, curving the edges back
to infinity, matter in transcendence.
the arc of the curve equals
135.5°, that is, equal to circle
minus
(Ö5-1)¸2.
the shells of the sea
spiral along this
curve, and flowers bloom
with petals numbered
by Fibonacci's sequence of addition:
1 2 3 5 8 13 21 and so ad infinitum
where, as the numbers
approach infinity, they approach also
the golden ratio of
1.618 etcetera to .618 etcetera.
the ratio of
the parthenon, the pyramids, Solomon's
temple, your reaching body.
iii/iii.
as the pine needles
fall in sweeping elliptic
curves I can say this is truth.
the chill and the cracked
stone wall remind me
of New England. my parents
taught me this kind of love by
raising me there, a place of green macintosh
and marble smooth snow, before
taking me to the heat and
heavy air of the bayous.
up in New England
the chill was everpresent;
a Puritan sorrow hung
across lonely commons, a place full of grave
yards and Indian legends,
where the chill affects the touch
of your hand, teaches you the
hardness of the ground
and the dirt,
where the power is in stones.
