ASIDE

 

 

Far off on the island, out of town,

I pedalled on a gravel path, passing by

an old, restored house,

small, simple, familiar in its Venetian style,

the plaster a full red-brown

like the texture of an oil painting,

you could almost taste it

neat against the quiet morning sky

with by it the still green flame of a cypress.

 

Eternity aside. Mose’s lit bush.

The poet had come across

a miracle like this,

a simple settled light.

But, even he then, had left

and forgotten it.

Going into the straight, absorbing

line of the future, the illusion,

our destiny.

 

I can’t do anything better

except to go back for an instant

to the fullness of a pastel red-brown plaster

and the fiery, airy green of a cypress

that grabbed the wind with a firm fist

and swayed an instant of eternity

into my heart.