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?