from Blackwater Quartet, selection 14

Airs, Waters, Places

A ribbon mist off Garda, and thunder
guttering in the Dolomites, across
the lido path a snow of jasmine— toss-turn
weather, the stain of stars we’re under,
confirms the spare conformity of loss.
 
The reds of red façades recall the lake
republic long since sunk past Salò’s port,
sideshow of the Romanesque, last resort
of Mussolini and the higher stake—
steamer routes, each hotel a former fort.

A reedy baffle gates the cut stone quay
against the backwash of the hydrofoils.
‘A week of fish in aromatic oils,
a little wine…’ wrote Pound in 1920,
inviting Joyce: belle-lettres, snug gargoyles.

Heat. Antique towns, screwed down by 30C,
retreat behind a pastel semaphore
of shutters and the weight of pines, restore
a rumour of Catullus to the scree
of broken capitals above the shore.

Under cypress spears, a part-worked torso
rises from a cube of local stone, no
seamless white carrara sculpted verso
to the clouds and water, each mallet blow
a kind of breath, instead, this cold echo.

San Paulo’s shade, a twisting tracery
of bay and bougainvillea, gives way
to blue enamels. Mary floats, a sway
of gold leaf shoaling the baptistery,
apostles fading from the fresco clay.

… sopravvivere alla perdita
della reputazione… to outlive
the loss of one’s reputation— votive,
mantis profile of the hydrofoil “Goethe”
past the terraces of stunted olive…

the driftwood cavities of failing bronze
that replicate these ghosts in time, and screen
the deck chair litter on the mezzanine.
Beyond the bright piazza, doily swans,
their careless whites, engage electric green.