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
