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Davide Trame

Torcello

A few metres of pale red
mud-splattered, fishbone patterned stones
and further on, after a detour
into a just paved, pale orange path,
the same Devil’s bridge with no railings
with its two, three worn out grey steps.
Then, gravel and mud, and the cathedral,
a massive harmony of neat old ochre bricks,
time’s rich skin perspiring.
And the square nakedness
of the bell tower’s top,
a gaze in the haze of nowhere.
Behind, a few fields and a path of frosted grass
corralled by nettles and bare trees.
You stand in the light
of deep winter’s bruised blue
and its silvered hush.

Before stepping back on the boat
you sense the pulse
of the minutes just passed,
the touch of the heart of silence,
the very mud under your feet a marvel
in the unsheathed cheeks of the air.
When the boat leaves you are caught
by thin sunbeams crisscrossing the sandbars,
banks pencilled by light
like running diamond edges
and a breath skimming your irises.
Through the boat window you once more gaze
at the light in which you want to be buried.

____

Davide Trame is an Italian teacher of English, born and living today in Venice, Italy. He has been writing poems exclusively in English since 1993, and they have been published in nearly 200 literary magazines, most recently, Poetry New Zealand, New Contrast (South Africa), Nimrod, and Prague Literary Review.

Copyright ©2006 by Davide Trame