It’s a lucky day for me
if they are burning on the hill
the cut and fallen branches.
Fire consumes wood, smoke
consumes air. Lucky day
to see what burns and smokes
inside me. If I sit at the window
long enough, I know the moon
will come back. Is that enough then?
I don’t mean is the moon enough,
but is the waiting for the moon enough?
I’m asking is the blue enough in Mary’s robe
as she cradles her dead son in her lap.
It is Bellini’s blue in the Accademia.
I stood for so long in front of it
that the guard, sitting on his little stool,
stopped whistling “Bridge
Over Troubled Water” and stared at me
in silence. But I stayed right where I was.
I had fallen in love with her,
that feeling of being nowhere
and everywhere at once, the way
they say the gods felt
when there were still gods. Meanwhile,
it’s 6 a.m., and there is smoky light
on the mountain, the hill, the olive trees,
those two birds hiding under the neighbor’s red tiles.
Serve us, they sing, us and us alone.
Are they swallows or swifts?
After all these years, I still don’t know.