Wild Marble 

I

     Staying on for a third year,
canary squares of wild marble
coming together, a butterfly,
the mimosa trembling

an even paler guest, in love
with a paradigm, japonica
returning in awe a ninth time
bent to clip a fresh
     honeysuckle cigarette.

     Who would, ringing the bell
start a coral cycle
of mermaid chess, drifting oxygen
     gifting an underwater guess?

     A commotion rang
to a mandarin request

before the striking of a gong
was heard: a footfall

withdrew to silence, caffeine
     and winter lime.

     Angels danced an era
and the night away on a pin:
it became easier to evolve
an optical paradox, lines
on oriental paper by a lake,
rib a silver moon, scheme
at being more than a sprinkler
of Parmesan cheese, garlic
before the avocado renegade
on pomegranate, crucial
     nymph salmon at six.

II

     A spirit may turn, halt and watch,
explore the flicker alcove to shadow
lives on a wall, ache for water
     before a campanile frenzy.

     Rowing a salver of infinity
in a past sea, opening a future
the game went on for a difficult year,
drew a probing guest, a new self
to wear out nine miles in a year

circling a cue, a billiard clue
or three to walking as one alone
questing in a sunny colonnade
haunting a parched light of dusk
for meaning larger than light,

higher than the lingering curves
on a white statue, a spiral fountain,
beauty finer than a memory weaves,
or a girl smiling in Modena, wistful
     for the touch in a Botticelli.

     We entered our island maze,
out of the guarded summer atrium
parallel to a water terrace
and saw, turning firmly left
by the maroon Hotel Carrara

over a loggia of garden vertigo
the utter realities' mirror
for the grooved marble regions
with flowering flames underfoot,
breathing hard now, joining
     the lost meeting she found.

For publication history see

 ITALIAN SECTION portfolio

© Christopher Truman 2005/6