2.22.2005

9

in Siena


The world ground onward in a cube of salt.
Salt was the law and salty was the sea.
The enthroned king, the striving peasantry,
maidens in a ring - salt was their vault.


A campanile rose in a stony square.
Below, horsemen in leopard skins dissolved
from shade to shadow - into beasts resolved.
Their eager cries raced upward, into air.


He found a corner in that crowded town.
Within the square confinement of a frame
the lawless world within his compass came.
Salt was the law. The sweat was all his own.

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