For Charles Wright
On a hill, approaching Easter,
well above the sea’s bland repetitions
of the same old story
and the town’s impenitent composure,
I survey old grounds.
The fire-winged gulls ungulf the tower.
Lesser grackles, nuns and tourists,
scatter on the grass.
The brandy-colored light of afternoon
seeps through the stonework;
creeping flowers buzz and flutter
in the limestone cracks.
Wisteria-chocked loggias drip with sun.
A honeycomb of cells absorbs the absence
it has learned to savor;
court and cloister close on silence,
the auroral prayers long since burned off
like morning fog.
The business of eternity goes on behind our backs.
In the chapel dark,
I’m trying to make out a worn inscription
on a wind-smudged altar,
but the Latin hieroglyphs have lost their edge.
Remember me, Signore,
who has not yet learned to read your hand,
its alphabet of buzz and drip and flutter.