Workers have stumbled on an old road
under Pisa’s tower, leaning now
with millennial seriousness of purpose.
In restauro and Chuiso, the signs
read, Under restoration and Closed.
The tower is not to be put aright;
just stopped from coming too close
to this Pisan earth, where once the sea
roared. We tourists need a guide
to show us towers leaning under
the ones looming above us,
basilicas and baptisteries filled
with stony subterranean chant,
cool Blue Grottoes lapping
under the luminous caves
the boats of our shadow days
move through, busts strewn
under the feet of statues
which gaze with egg-white eyes
on us, villa and palazzo
magnificent in the opulent dark.
Tuscan cypress, twirled pines
of Rome, stately avenues run
beneath those which take us here
and there through the clutter
of our days, as we go the way
our parents went in their haste
to make of earth and stone a name,
a place, then slip beneath the grass
to walk away from us forever.
Originally published in Cider Press Review, Volume 1.
