First Panel

A confusion of soldiers—the guide counts
for us ten helmeted heads but twenty-five
boots—cramped below the castle wall.
Are they mustering for a surge or balking
just beyond the archers’ reach?

Second Panel

Ripped away, only a skirt of paint hemming
top and bottom, forty-seven boots kissing,
toe-to-toe. At the top, a ribbon of sky, a broken
spearhead hangs loose in the air, like an iron
falcon folded to drop. So rare, says the guide,
for motion to be conveyed this way.

Third Panel

An army victorious, but high on the flagpole
its standard has been pried away for its gold
enamel, so who can say which army
it is, invader or defender? The guide smiles,
points to the missing triangle. This theft
too, he says, is hundreds of years
old. This theft too is part of history.

Once, in the cool blue middle of a lake,
up to my neck in that most precious element of all,

I found a pale-gray, curled-upwards pigeon feather
floating on the tension of the water

at the very instant when a dragonfly,
like a blue-green iridescent bobby pin,

hovered over it, then it, and rested.
That’s all.

I mention this in the same way
that I fold the corner of a page

in certain library books,
so that the reader will know

where to look for the good parts.