these southern towns are founded on night
that’s pitiless and starless as day
nocturnal councils gather out of sight
to meet in chapter perhaps grant a stay
some are accelerated to sainthood
others fall to precipitous ruin
eroded by evil - anything good
was long overgrazed so soul’s always strewn
on the capuchin earth - getting turned
out the steep empty towns : only the sky’s
an ecstatic - levitating unburned
by being blue in the sun’s flawless lie
where places are true and secrets are false
when seen through shade - and shadow felt by pulse
Oxford
Blackwell’s
3 June 2018
Perhaps the Australasian sonnet is a response to light. Perhaps Irish Australians like Bernard O’Dowd (1866-1953) and Christopher Brennan ( 1870-1932) were onto something. In any case I come from parts of New Zealand that resemble Puglia and Basilicata in the Mezzogiorno of Italy.
Why the capuchin earth ? The ground is a light yellow brown. Padre Pio of course, St Pio of Pietrelcina (1887 - 1968) originally Francesco Forgione, was a Capuchin of this region. The earth is certainly not a dark brown as the robes of capuchin friars are brown but more like a cappuccino.
It is a curious word for a colour because a displacement always occurs from the original colour of the friars. Capuchin monkeys are more associated with their buff colour than the brown just like the coffee’s hue. It is this displacement that interests me. It is as if the colour dries and becomes dessicated blanched or burnt or dusted from the original out amongst its attributions. The original colour is perhaps closer to the shade. If I had to suggest an illustration for this poem I suggest a simple field of very dark brown and brown gold, paly per pale, as they say in heraldry.