In gold light here a small guard
warns me not to cross the velvet chain
or climb the stairs that might break down
beneath my modern bulk. Galileo’s telescope
was not the first but first toward
the sky. The milky way’s not milk
and Venus circles in and out of light.
Take air away and even fire falls—
a voice through this tan air, across
these tiers, seducing men to think.
Star without parallax, he measured time
by weight, like men, and moons of Jupiter
were cause for wine. Sagredo warned
of Roman hate so heavy it can crack
the latest lens. No Pope honors proof
we move about the sun. God is weight
enough to bend an unrecanting knee.
He may be wrong. The sun may circle men.
The stairs might hold me but his chair,
inelegant and worn, is the odd star
fixed beyond my chain. The brown wood
turns this hall a darker brown
each year. We’ll give in too and air
will darken in Peking. Outside, pigeons
called by bells of Padova
to fan about a tower, highest point
for miles, the first and last to catch
the sun, won’t fly or will fly blind.
I never cross the chain. The small guard
tries to talk but my Italian’s stuck.
Was the dungeon black? The one he went to
when he’d lied to God, and where he said
eppur si muove and it did.