Fontegaia, at a gallop now...

14

 
The aged sheepdog sometimes loses the scent
of his old flame   but then steps back 4 steps
and picks it up again   waltzing from the steppes
to the Andes   down the incremental ink-track   went

 
trailing a single dark hair   curled in a Guadalupe
loop   & round & down   into a quipu knot   like
Juliet in Cuzco  sunspot in the shade   of Manco Capac
so   love's mazement makes a labyrinth of   rosy lips

 
& so   the blindness of the heart's black hole
(cunning J-dem conundrum) might become
a spinning jenny demonstration   thrown some-
where   by modal centrifugue   toward Clio

 
& Calliope   or Cassiopeia   luminous suspended W
above the primal falls   where the well begins
the fountain springs   where Frisbee spins
in stillness, hovering - Noah's rainbow -

 
out of the still center   of the potter's royal palm
near the Middle Sea   of an infinite (88-fold) stringed
mappamondo   out of the hole in the Blind King
shade   out of Poe's fable   & Whitman's dream

 
the light   light fingers leave   across chippy water
old jib wassail, old Bluejay way   & the scent
of a goodness deepening through distance   what
she meant   by leafing me   through the dark matter

 
of Siena ennead   Nile-milk   by leafing me alone
& all   disintegrated from her heart   a separation
of the eyes   from sun   old chaos-causing Cuz
undone   by djinn   a spirit-whorl's   O-zone

                           
                    *

 
then   thence   to begin again
as unfurled flag   or fiddlehead
since   Lucy's lightened way   led
Will   unburdened now   as if reborn

 
& as each petal   of the famished heart
made bold to turn again   beheld   as from the pool
rose   rose   lake standing sheer   a school of
golden fish   translucent   there   in evening light

 
there   at the Itasca source   of all my   labile
laboring here   in ordinary   Providence
toward you   because   love's endless 
sentience is spun   from a blind sapience   wild

 
tamarind tree   of very rooted nature   kind
& true   through fair & foul   equable   steadfast
& firm   lasting forever   like a droning mast
through the last tempest   until you find

 
streaming   good will   in a delicate arc of spray
from a limestone font   sweet susurrus underneath
the stumbling speech   of a beckoning mosaic   wraith
of inward memory   you always knew   & could not say

 
O harbinger of restoration   little messenger
on tender feet   my carrier pigeon
out of Jonah's wail   take this portion
to her Mystery   like the town in the cupola, or

 
the rose in the chest   Jose   Martin   Jasper
& Hart   it flowers so   and flows toward where
up where it came   the stream in the mirror
the rose in Notre Dame   so follow now   now   soar

      
                                        6.4.08

(p.s. some notes : this is the centerpiece of the final (5th) chapter of the poem. "j-dem" - term from contemporary physics having to do with theory of dark energy. "Manco Capac" - mysterious Inca savior-god (see Melville's Confidence Man). "Middle Sea" - ancient term for Mediterranean (middle C - center of 88-key piano). "Blind King" - The Blind King was the name of an old storefront windowshade store on Atwells Ave., in Federal Hill, the Italian section of Providence.)