Fontegaia... today's draught.

23  (a Masque)

 
The dogwood colors gradually, blushing
plum and russet, slowly reddening
to holly scarlet, then fading... til
each leaf, like kiln-fired clay, goes drifting

 
along the ground.  So many stray horses,
lost in an autumn wood, all flames!
And the chill in the air - the seraphim!
Terrific echoes from the future race

 
- boomerang into the past - the chariots
of Israel and her horsemen!  Elijah
leans near the gleaming throne, a grail-
ship in his hand - Lord, suspended - floats!

 
The dark drops quickly now, a silvery
wrinkle of late-summer crickets (curtain
of homely sound).  Soon my labyrinthine
morris dancer will emerge (memory

 
a buried well).  Fleet companion,
lightfoot arborist... whose brook
slips past a forest door - dark book
of frittery wings (dried myrmidons).