Fountains

Nocturne No. 11

(for Rilke and Lorca)

What did they see behind the falls
of Europe’s squares, those lyricists
who wrote so much on fountains’ mists
infusing a window between two wars?

Maybe those dreamers gazed upon
refracted shimmerings; and spied
the spectres due to haunt the destroyed
plazas and their muted ponds

Give me the fountain beneath the fountain—
neither the spring of death nor youth
but one that will tunnel into the earth
and freeze where the very heart is pounding