history was one spring (after another)

the first mild night *
of your remembrance or the spring’s
regretful
when even the city
was a history * or such memories
of a night flowering
with a fragrance * of stars 
here where in the night now
the ministry
is * was
the old school once
under * these when these
late wanderings are not enough
to unearth
a quelconque Byzantium
or others * among such shadows
as the leaves spangle
or the statue
of a lucent moon or higher even
than our own memory * exiled now
far out past and beyond the city limits
and waning
near to the river’s darkness
and curling
and into the night * it seems
of its own or another’s
history