Once more I’ve come to see what can be seen:
flashes of gold, a raised medieval choir
of ivory, tile in snaking patterns
that ravel and unravel on the floor.
It’s winter. There’s a damp, raw,
penetrating chill to all the marble
although the nave is lanced with whitish sun.
I see my breath beside the ancient columns.
Today, there are no real worshippers. All
are here for mere art’s sake. Just well-
dressed tourists, scented, prosperous,
who wander, awed, or rest along the pews
so I walk down steps into the old basilica
whose chambers lie below street level
above an even older site of worship.
Instead of vibrant, gold-entwined mosaics,
here the frescoes graphing out the tales
of saints are losing hues before my eyes,
their actions seen in parts. The floor’s
red surface has been almost walked away.
Down at the lowest level, after
visits to several mildewed, dusty rooms
(a bare bulb every ten feet lights the way),
I see something that strikes me as even stranger:
four doorways, one after another, each
the size of a person, keyhole-shaped rectangles
rounded at the top. I guess
it’s not so strange, except they’re cut in stone
precisely for a body to pass through
as many have for centuries by now.
I pass through every one of them,
my shadow gliding along uneven floors
in front of me, lumpish and black. Last
of all, as I’m set to ascend, I see
one cavern barred behind a grill
of iron at the bottom of the stairs, and stoop
to look inside: The light from where I stand
extends a little into that weird place
but then is sucked inside it, dwindling
in increments, until all I can tell
of the back, the very back of it, is blackness.
It’s noon and the church must close. I climb
up into the brighter rooms as bells
begin: six rings, six more. And I emerge.