On a back street, via San Matteo, where the sun wasn’t shining, we sat at the sort of table I love with the girl that I love and searched for a poem by the 14th century poet – San Gimignano. We liked it, so thought we’d share it as our day’s post.
Not the towers
your terrible fear of heights
you never tried the climb –
not the streets,
nor the squares
ringed by houses
with no windows
or doors
Three things:
A gaze from the wall
to the plain, right down to Volterra,
sun and shadows racing
under a sky that shifts
cloudy to clear
In the Piazza della Cisterna
as soon as the cafes
come alight
waves of darkness
spread through the sky
the rooks in flight
Strange smell,
an old library smell
of golden brown
– huge mushrooms,
rising
from the basket
gripped in the knees of an old woman
What more did you expect
from an Etruscan town.
