Beginning Rest Note Book II :

1

 
A warm day in the middle of October;
a carnival of starlings in the maple trees
whistle among themselves; their gleeful squeals
captivate a lapsing Hobo (not so sober).

 
Deep russet of the dogwood overhead
is autumn's canopy.  A stand-in for the season.
The sun plays hide and seek - light-clouded
blason - dimwit paramour of drowsy Red.

 
So Hobo sought a whistle of his own,
his very own.  Somewhere in the light-
edged clouds, or beneath a moonlit freight-
train's shunting accordion-chord.  Unknown

 
before, because forgotten once.  Dismissed,
abandoned.  Only the echo reckons harmony,
the two made one (so the blind begin to see,
the old made new again).  Come back then,

 
Muse, mistress of my distress, he whispers.
Zephyr of a cipher, ring me round
as in that rusty phantom of Siena-town
(good riddance to nine hundred lonesome vespers).

 
Where brother Lorenzetti flickers horsehair
in the silence of the popular palazzo.
Whistle unheard, sign unseen, yet natural
as is the rhyme of evening and year.

 
The nine girls float into a ring, a tambourine
embellishing.  The tinkling swish of iron limns
a sound like starlings in frail, flaking limbs.
Hobo hears trombones in the aquamarine.

                                      
                          10.15.06