WAKENING

A stiletto of light insidiosed

morning into the black room

pushed by a man stricken

with medieval pox

galvanized, Vitus-minded,

a jump-reaction to rip

the paysage like a painting into shreds

with halberded hands

when the shutters swing out.

A slight refraction of the haze

mars the hills and villages of dawn:

when I read the Divine Comedy at twenty

I didn’t know that thirty years will

pass before my fingers turn the page

to nightingale and stonechat voices

plaiting their song

into an anthem of the Casentino.