10

 
The shadow of the campanile (Torre del Mangia)
sweeps across the Campo, a silent sundial.
The soaring tower, the feminine seashell...
and at the crown of the piazza - Fonte Gaia.

 
Through Roman bottini (clay and yellow tufa)
they channeled water, finally, uphill (1342) -
and danced and sang around the fountain - Fonte
Gaia, Fonte Gaia! - bubbling up - miracola!

 
Tower and seashell... apposite coniunctio
where snorting horses of the Palio
rush round and round... a rondo
or riddle (for braincells in the Palazzo).

 
Dante, Plato, Aristotle too -
what set of all sets contains itself?
What infinite eagle's wing serves as parent-
parenthesis (under what oaken aegis, bow of yew)?

 
Blood surges through the crippled horse's neck
and through the local channels of the soil's
prolific prodigal (hill town) : soul's free potential,
Aristotle notes (Thermopylae to Alexander's wreck).

 
Freedom burbles in the wellspring (Fonte Gaia,
Fonte Gaia!) of the spark of understanding
as the utter Indeterminate, the winging
Unaccountable (king-servant, shepherd-pariah)

 
folded into the heart of an origami bird
or papyrus flight.  Distant voices (Fonte Gaia...)
from a frozen waterfall; far reaches (Primo
Mobile).  Alter ego of an altar (trumpet-word).