Noah's yawl

DANTE SCHOOL

Long ago in Florence, Alighieri

smashed the limestone font

at the Baptistery – Don’t

Panic! – to save a little boy

from drowning.  His prophetic sign,

a riposte for his own exile –

sluiced out with bile

& blood of lawlessness (Italian

style).  The sea rides high, the rain

seems endless.  Human

callousness a given,

leaden sinker-weights anchored in pain

call for a coracle, a basket-woven

safety net (to keep

the child alive, upon

the deep).  Cross-stitch the waves then,

Raven – paint Noah’s yawl afloat

until we memorize the name

that hawsers through this game

of crosshairs (golden, black & white).

Only a shadow over the sea;

an eyelash, lancing

a tiny tear.  So bring

your harp now, Queequeg – free

that pearl-feathered quasi-gull

whose omnipresence bobs

the wavy globe.  Corncobs

& acorns in Polenta (Dante school).

8.16.16