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.