18

 
The old maps of the world were circular.
As on a ferris wheel or carousel
each coracle, carrack and caravel
defied the stormy ocean in the mirror.

 
Upstairs, in the house next door, a woman
singing, practicing her scales, reminds
me of a world in balance (as it happens).
So on the walls of city hall (Siena)

 
Justice, buon governo, reigns (in pastel)
on her throne - the scales of equity
hoisted in hand; and on a busy street
below, calm maidens mime a sweet rondel,

 
a rondo in a rondure, round and round.
We know the ferris wheel is iron, not gold,
yet this the Oro Pendula has not been told -
she skirts a circuit-plumbline off the ground.

 
The displaced mowers on a wide prairie
are not quite ready for a painted hallelujah.
And shall they never find their home?  Selah
shalom they shall goes murmuring Windy Mary -

 
out of the womb of her anemometer
in a mazy mummer's Amazon.  She figures
the breeze as a sigh between even shares
of scythe and sky, down to the caterpillar.

 
Sing-song, goes the wind, pitter-patter
comes the rain, the rain that raineth
every day.  The ferris wheel complaineth
not; the swingset is a kingly litter.