PANEGYRIC

Trip to the Ghetto fish market in tandem with translation of a "Panegyric to Liberty" —subtitle to Amelia Rosselli's poemetto "The Libellula" (oscillation between libellula (dragonfly, corporal, adderfly) & liberty, libel, & libellare—Latin for setting into text)

—yanking the classical eulogy, panegirico, down to earth as the giro del pane, or circuit of daily bread.

...And it was then that the wretched corpses of our dead

rhymed for the whole in a violent echoing,

oh I sing through the streets but only the holy father

knows where all that ends up. And you and your holy

troubles will bring kneelings to that confessor of yours

and he will give you that blessed blessing

that I wish were made of bread and oil....

—Amelia Rosselli, trans. Scappettone