BEEHIVE WITNESS
Dante’s rambles round the tamarack swamps
outside Ravenna. Beached
hulks of Byzantium reach
toward the sea. Inside, smoke-lamps
phosphoresce hieratic grandeur
(kind bovine gaze of Empress,
Emperor). Alighieri’s
impressed – ecco l’ora serale
in those green sheepfold meadows
where Time does not run.
He pursues his martyrion –
Crusader grandfather, circle of Mars.
He etches in vernacular his answer
out of deep parish history
to the welded Roman panoply
(Arcadian melody, Virgilian whisper).
I am a scribe who when Love speaks
hastens after, hearkening
noting everything down.
I haven’t heard from Bea in weeks.
I remember lips set with a grim reproof.
Down at the borderland
(Texas to Samarkand) –
Coatlicue, Tezcalipoca... beetling roof
of squalling Raven years. Esta
su iglesia, Henrique?
She’ll be coming like Elijah,
not Europa, now (beehive witness).
6.24.19
woodcut by Mary Ravlin Gould
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