MANTUAN
 1447-1516


A city on a hill dream
from a Christian Virgil
awakes to fulfill you
into writing ecologues,
as Mantuan,
the Carmelite poet
writes masterful dialogues
without interruption
from a monastery,
searches for words
against impolite corruption
at warm summer's noon
now perched on a hammock
trembling inside
by a tree's birds
nesting on branches
for an upturned future
of a church's reform.