For seven years her skies released
Love's warm, refreshing showers,
And Margaret bloomed heedlessly
In admiration's hours.

Rains turned to storms and shook the trees
Free of their golden sleeves;
Bare arms reached up, but mother's love
Had vanished with the leaves.

Arms always hope. The barren boughs
Awaited fuller skies;
Arms reached to second mother, but
No answering arms would rise.

Jealous sun glared arid strife,
and poplar's green decayed;
But death produced a teeming soil
For foliage then arrayed.

Orange-scarlets tumbled in the sun
And danced upon the air;
The fires of love and hate and need
Had fused to wildfire there.

The streets were bright when Margaret passed.
No eye could gaze unwon;
Her flaming beauty passion-crazed
Montepulciano's son.

There under brilliant leaves were raised
The empty arms until
He brought a royal name and wealth
To barter for her will.

Away into the darkened hills
The maid and noble fled
While scarlet leaves fell to the ground
And lay in dream piles, dead.

But Margaret's sixteen years dreamed life
In richer love and gowns;
She dreamed in eyeless vision's gaze
Of riding through the towns.

He promised all that love could hope
To find for starving life;
He granted all that love could hope
Except the name of wife.

She ruled as mistress in his halls
And lived in satin dreams;
A wine-red love surrounded her
In hypnotizing streams.

Behind the dark of willow trees
She lived dark history,
And darkness sometimes haunted her
In a voice of mystery.

The streets were bleak when Margaret passed.
No step could move unscorned,
And bitter were the tongues that lashed
A shame so rich adorned.

She shut out darkness, voices, doom;
She drew the satin deep,
And reveled in the wine-red love
In warm, unconscious sleep.

Nine winters passed and brought nine springs.
His lands spread far and wide,
And called the lord to visit them;
She watched him mount and ride.

A night and day she looked for him
While leaden moments crept;
Her candle burned in every hour
As peaceful households slept.

Then came a sound outside the gate
With morning's early red;
She sprang to meet her cavalier...
His dog--alone--struck dread.

The dog looked worn, but turned again,
Refusing to be caught;
Forgetting cloak, she followed him,
Afraid of what she sought.

Through rutted fields the dog led on,
And under tangled skies;
Beside an oak he stopped and turned,
As to apologize.

A grayish paw brushed grayish leaves
Aside from shadowed place;
The trees were silent as she gasped--
She saw her lover's face.

Green-golden poplars whirled into
Her mind, and scarlet gowns
Of maples flashed in dead gray piles
While willows spun dark crowns.

Then reeling forests slowed and shrank
Beneath an oak's stern stand
Above a murdered, putrid corpse
That marked with wisdom's brand.

The oak stood faceless in the face
Of wonder, dumb and blind;
It witnessed without scorn or blame--
So ignorant, so kind.

Upon it fell her sickened eye
As if to blank out sight;
And "Judgment" blazed her drugged brain
With searing, smashing might.

Her Judge, she knew, was present there
With payment just and meet
For evidence too ugly-real:
Her sin lay at her feet.

The voices that had haunted her
Threw off their dark disguise;
A rival Lover seeking her
Stood by to claim his prize.

The streets were wet when Margaret passed.
Her small son clutched her hand
And gazed at her disfigured face
And could not understand.

She crept up to the friars' door
And stood defenseless--known;
They knew--knew treasure--and they saved
Cortona's precious loan.

They took the guilt rope from her neck;
They gave her son their might;
And then they gave her Francis' cloth
And fired his third great light.

Poetry and graphics by Dorothy
Original MIDI "Sixteen Beat" by Andy Klapwyk

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