Cirque Planetaire

UPSTART HILLS

Gray coal cars thunder monotonously

across an old iron bridge.

Only a local image

in midwestern bleak.  Your poem will be

allegorical, of necessity

since an Earth so various

is only one of a series

on parade (sparkling panoply

du Cirque Planetaire).  Italian sun

is as a brazen shield

above scarred poppy field;

the moon a candle in Pavian dungeon...

Poema Sacra, Dante’s testament

è tutto didascalico –

a climber’s manual (to go

from shady gloom to cheerful summit

of Rose Mountain splendor).  My sun

rides low in winter sky,

chanting How Not to Die

in plain & soulful Minnesotan

(Ojibwa).  The dream of history

breaks open at its heart.

All-human upstart

hills (Superior, or Tuscany)

fill nets of silver phosphor –

your soul’s a philosopher

in love with twin Mirror

Lakes (Justitia, Amor).

1.13.16