Fontegaia, closing fast...

22

 
A quiet summer Saturday   only the rolling surf
of tires (on Hope St.) making noise   I mess
with the tesserae   of my familiar mosaic
shifting the icon-tokens here, there   (St. Olaf,

 
St. George)   as if   to make it all cohere
here   to frame a dome   out of pure foam &
filmy scurf   this is a job for St. Jerome, &
not some   gypsy fiddlehead or   balladeer

 
In the evening   taking out the garbage
among the cedars   behind the old church
the green dusk-light   a lichen-phosphorus
struck an opal match   from a distant age

 
some reconcilement   of remotest mind
he wrote   & so I remembered how   these
flaky photographs I try to fix   are emblems
only   of an inward lens (sometimes you find it,

 
opening)   Mnemosyne   mother of every memory
your almond ray   be with me now   while I recall
the whole consort dancing together   flickering
against the wall   out of penury   Oblomov's

 
burning heart   under the bridge   arching its back
& shimmering   as if to mimic that   far-off Sky-
Ocean-River   (milky spine, rim of   a panoply
of lights)   whose furnace molds a cataract

 
in limestone   vulcan flow   where the rubber tire
swings   motionless   in an early   stillness
quietude   pleroma   Diana's light sandal-
wing's whole world   come round   (suspended   lyre)