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
รจ 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
