Busy today in Fontegaia-land...

11

 
Strange mourning dove   hidden somewhere behind me
this evening   fluting her clay ocarina   inconsolable
blue-grey counterpart   to all the cheery warblers
and chatterers   a low woodwind   in minor key

 
lonely   What do you want, heavy-hearted little bird?
You have your mate somewhere, I'm sure
you have the bird-feeder   and the June weather
Time, time... you're moaning   Time   hoarded

 
kept close   within your somewhat tubby frame
keeping time   & this minor key, this mournful note
must have another counterpart,   your saturnine
urn   its jovial mead-cup   true end and aim

 
of such drawn-out, repetitive, lengthy, endless complaint
O ever-despised, lonesome, no-count heart (slate
tablet's plum-robed sentinel) of yearning earth!
My brooder, there in the shade - muttering, faint!

 
You chant your dirge   just as you do   in the window
of the town hall   in Siena   and this evening
your meaning came clear through   to me   (wings
of seraphim bear similar sign)   it is   to know

 
is to love   to love is to know (beckoning
mote in the eye of Magdalen) there is no more
than this   this is the source   of that obscure
slow semaphore   absent moon-fountain (morning,

 
Diana)   elusive water   too clear to see
only rightly seen   in simplicity
foundation sure   of every
spectral fresco   of   good governance   & free