Fontegaia chapt. 3 heads homeward now.

22

 
It was summer.  Little Henry went looking
for Frisbee the paper hat-boat, down
a rainstream in Mendelssohn Lane.
The morning moon like a leftover something

 
(wedding ring or silver dollar) in the plains
bright blue.  A shadow of the Great State 
Seal, the coin that everyone had helped
create - river, horse, Indian, plowman,

 
star.  It was all there.  And Mendelssohn
your secret crown, alchemical quintessence,
infant font of fond infinity.  A vague, dense
matrix of remote wells - comet kingdom.

 
Evening fireflies, country weeds... sealed
in the hold.  Minute meow-mn in copper moon,
mild Negus-riddle of your own Nile-rune.
Where's Frisbee gone?  It's not revealed.

 
Little Henry, you must go
to the antipodes of your old slough
where strange mosquitoes dangle dew
above an Amazon... past Mexico.

 
There is an ink-path to a sky-redoubt
above three knotted quipu threads -
yourself, your friend, your enemy.  Triad
of pain, renunciation and reprieve - scout's

 
honor, civic vow.  For the slow fast,
for the sobornost, for the solid air
of winged, flighty joy.  For the plowshare
of that watcher there - her willow-mast.