...meanwhile, the horserace (or turtle race) continues...

7

 
On the prehistoric spine of Providence
spring trees branch white
with tiny flowerets.  Intricate
clouds come down to earth.  Once

 
each April, all the young trees
are almond-shaped.  The almond
blooms in winter snow (the round
year interrupted so) and so precedes

 
the Palio.  And so the Palio proceeds -
one horse (the last) sets a race in motion.
Pegasus, molding the Hippocrene fountain,
is pattern for these hill-town cavalcades.

 
Anxious against the rope the jockeys
plunge their steed-necks; hair's-breadth
will determine (after all the breath-
less muttered dickering) who hoists Mary's

 
flickering image in the Campo once again.
Meanwhile trees whisper a different course
(I remember small purple-white magnolias
in the courtyard beside the Franciscan

 
chapel, at the edge of a cliff-like wall).
They hold their places, swaying in the wind.
Sap rises slowly, tuned to long sorrow, blind
adoration.  Slowly, lowly... (like a turtle's call).