8

 
And every race is a memento of the last
and the race itself is in memoriam
for the republic - its equilibrium
a dream of self-determination (still steadfast).

 
It seems a dream-work of oppressive habit
round and round the celebrated shell.
And the echoing shouts, curses - rivals'
obscene chicanery - twilight orbit

 
of the mob - all mingle there in the valley
of three hills (fuse and fade out into
children's games).  And the chariot
of the elders, clasping their hoary tally-

 
books, stamped with the black-white oval
of Siena... an absent river (Dante's gibe)
streams invisibly beneath it all.  The tribe
of poets crosses there - perpetual

 
hum (mellifluous).  You search for its source
in the double-almond of those eyes beyond
memory - like an icon from Trebizond
or the sound of a nervous horse

 
in love with the whole race (spread
over the sloping breast of earth-
buried bricks).  Woman of the South,
Sheba from Nile head-

 
waters, angel next door.  Evening
monotone (universal groan).  Cosmic
longing springs from the tropic
Amazon - her hair tendrils an unseen

 
planet; there the contemplative
urchin sets his paper vessel free
to echo in the stream of memory.
Horses, muses, stream, give, give.