16

 
Ambrogio ("Honey") Lorenzetti painted
the missing Mappamondo, across the room
from a canopied Maesta (red, white, bloom).
A wheeling disk on the wall, centered

 
on Siena or Jerusalem (we don't know)
surmounted by a bold and burly majordomo
(Guidoriccio) - his horse checkered red-gold,
black (goldfinch caparison).  1352

 
(after the funeral).  City by the Sea,
Castle by a Lake... mute panel-trophies
of the subjugated suburbs; Sienese
big game, hung up in framed humility

 
around a proud procession of possession.
On the far wall, in a niche, kitty-
corner to the Virgin Majesty -
a later friar, Bernardino (franciscan

 
hobo - voluble, acute - Byzantine-
thin-sharp - smirking, barely)
stands barefoot on a mini-Mercator
of his own... modest Napoleon,

 
the self-crowned ruler of himself.
Through a door, the panorama of Good
Government (girlish neighborhood,
primavera ring-dance); then riff-raff

 
of the Palio (thundering hoofsparks
on the Campo bricks) out in the streets
a smoldering explosion of communitas
joyous throngs surging through the parks

 
mincing   jostling   pirhouetting   prancing
Mappamondo, Mappamondo... horsemen
circle round a single steed (your golden-
black caparison)... I'm getting dizzy, going

 
blind.  Still center of yon middle-earth
(Jerusalem) Saena Julia (a sign of J).
A workeman that hath copies by...
might fix my ferris wheel into a wreath.