Calabrian Days

In the Byzantine chapel in Stilo,

Beside the antique column turned upside-down

To celebrate the triumph over pagan evil,

I heard the Easter procession passing,

Drunk on honey, almonds and figs,

And thought of Tommaso Campanella,

Transfixed here on the mountainside,

Prisoner of the heretical stars.

In Crotone,in the ossuary of the Immacolata,

Regarding the nameless skulls piled high,

I thought of Pythagoras, seeking sanctuary

In the malarial city, hoping to crown himself

King of a new dominion, his own utopia,

Only to find himself banished, on the run again,

Cursing the incurable stupidity of man.

Squirreling in the Sila mountains,

Spring sang fierce Albanian hymns,

And the ghosts of lions and panthers

Stalked among vanished trees,

And your kiss was like snow on a pine branch.

At Nocera Tirinese wailing processions

Swayed through the streets, the flagellants

Flogging their naked backs, splashing the doors

With their blood, to protect those within,

Till the rain washed the stains away.

In Tropea, grotesque faces stared out from walls,

Warding off the evil eye, and we gazed out

Across the sea to the silhouette of Strómboli

And heard the Aeolian Islands singing

Beneath the swordfish sun’s high leap.

In the olive groves of Aspromonte,

I thought of Musolino,that great brigand

Who led the police a long mocking dance

For years on these slopes, preying on the rich

And corrupt, but a friend to the needy,

Doomed to die at last in the lunatic asylum,

Too sane for the world he lived in.

We plucked the sun like a bergamot

On afternoons of love and dumb confusion,

Alchemists sweating over the alembic

To elixiate the tiniest quintessence.

Sybarites surviving the city’s fall,

Sacked by barbarous envy and greed,

We escaped into the mountains and rivers,

And merged with the heavy vines.