It could have been no random simple accident
that called me out across the water, late
one August afternoon, to seek Torcello Isle -
that green mosquitoed, mossy fen – to contemplate;
uncanny moments when the water flushed bright pink,
or cyclamen, and synthesized an altered state;
the daily turn of trippers bouncing from the boats,
gone flouncing down to buy and barter tourist lace,
then on to reverence and honour holy sites,
before their picnic – meats with rosemary and mace,
and final hasty scramble for the water bus;
deserted night conferring magic on the place.
For all the forty residents and I the dark
was altogether like a living state of grace.
Such vastness, never tawdry, never opulent,
like Casanova’s City of the golden plate.
I stayed for twenty timeless days and rarely took
the boat to travel round – at restless chugging pace
the Lido, Grand Canal, Murano, Marco Square,
or see the loud Venetian gondoliers race.
Torcello, island with a secret inner lake,
where Emperor of birds; the noble heron, faced
a row-boat navigated through those thick canals
by Stephano, Franco’s younger brother, who had traced
a course for us, to Earth and Heaven’s interface.
