3.11.2008

Fontegaia chapt. 3 heads homeward now.

22


It was summer. Little Henry went looking
for Frisbee the paper hat-boat, down
a rainstream in Mendelssohn Lane.
The morning moon like a leftover something


(wedding ring or silver dollar) in the plains
bright blue. A shadow of the Great State
Seal, the coin that everyone had helped
create - river, horse, Indian, plowman,


star. It was all there. And Mendelssohn
your secret crown, alchemical quintessence,
infant font of fond infinity. A vague, dense
matrix of remote wells - comet kingdom.


Evening fireflies, country weeds... sealed
in the hold. Minute meow-mn in copper moon,
mild Negus-riddle of your own Nile-rune.
Where's Frisbee gone? It's not revealed.


Little Henry, you must go
to the antipodes of your old slough
where strange mosquitoes dangle dew
above an Amazon... past Mexico
.


There is an ink-path to a sky-redoubt
above three knotted quipu threads -
yourself, your friend, your enemy. Triad
of pain, renunciation and reprieve - scout's


honor, civic vow. For the slow fast,
for the sobornost, for the solid air
of winged, flighty joy. For the plowshare
of that watcher there - her willow-mast.


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