The women here, five to every male, hang
their hopes on the thread of a man's yes or no; changing
course like a river meeting hard rock. Secret hopes, flowering
unbidden, like hawkweed on stony slopes, at the foot
fall of Endymion wandering by. I sense unspoken
invitations, subtle skirmishes for place on the tour bus.
Everywhere I look, stone walls and marble statues,
bearing Time's marks and erasures, crumbling walls,
stairs to an Italian garden, now a road where buses, cars
carry tourists to invade your hill towns, Siena, Certaldo,
San Gimignano. In the country of love, your sad gates open
to overnight guests without reservations.
Each midnight, I walk on the terrace for my last cigarette,
check the skies for stars I know. I watch the lights
of distant hill-towns, with people bedding down
in their own beds, or another's, while the grapes ripen
on the vines and olives turn dark with oil, and night
winds bend around the straight cypresses.
I am filled with gratitude
for what I have: the quietude of balance, the heart's
being free of wanting, knowing out there
beyond the hazy slopes of convoluted olive trunks
and grape vines, my love remembers holding me,
as I remember holding him, each absence a gift of affirmation,
desire placed on hold waiting renewal. Beyond my terrace wall
a drift of voices, amazed at stone shaped by human hands,
structures that endure.
No comments:
Post a Comment