Meeting Dante

Written 700 years after his death

Midway across the bridge at Portico di Romagna

Suspended above the Tramazzo

Then leaning in the chapel window to imagine 

A lone Franciscan praying by a lambent candle

You rise up through the whipping branches

Up and up and down the Castellina

Until the broken concrete and deep deep pools

Open up their mouths

Uttering the trickling stream.

Here we swam with the golden and grey fish

And made a simple fire

As the broiling heat descended

From the sky, and evening bruising

Into purple, I slept amid a murmur

Of teenage chat and gentle splashing.

And as I slept I saw a broken Dante walk 

And stand above me. 

St Francis with his stigmata 

All Giotto green and black

Dripping blood-sweat into his knotted cords,

Haggard face drawn in pain.

Sitting down, warming his hands

Thomas d’Aquino 

Eyes gazing fixed deep into the flames.

I watched them expecting them to talk

But silence filled their eyes. 

Yet we were there. Together. Around a brazier. 

Not denying Christ.

Behind them in the dark, 

Some local Beatrice swam naked 

In the pool and Alighieri,

Arms swathed around his form,

Closed his hopeless eyes

In a momentary syncope.

And they were gone.

All around was silence,

The blackest dark beyond the

Final embers. Golden and grey.

I woke and shivered as the 

Trickling water licked within the pools.

Along the darkest path

I stumbled half broken with

My vision until I reached 

The bridge which seemed to 

Arch up beyond all possibility.

I stumbled and could not

Reach the other side.

I clawed my way up over the cobbles

Then felt underfoot the smooth

streets of the town.

Across the night I froze

As a shifting shrill sound 

Clung to the air.

Maybe I imagined the echo.

Maybe I heard

Beatrice’s father

Call out her name.

Or was it Dante

Calling to her window

In the soft dawn?