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Sadly, my trip to Italy this Summer was pushed to next year due to COVID-19, but I have the memories from last year’s short trip to enjoy until then.
Sant’Adrea della Valle Day #8
She still protests the possibility
Of instantaneous love from only sight
Alas, we all are hypocrites at heart
For she was swept from footing without fight
From broiling cobblestones of busy Rome
The wooden narthex was a sweet respite
She curious waited just behind the guide
Who must go through an historical rite
But when the heavy door was barely cracked
Attribute to exhaustion if you will
Her spirit falling to its knees in awe
But who conceived that sunlight so could spill
In liquid down the column in her view
And then the door was open to fulfill
Or nay, confirm, the love already formed
Enchanted by a solemn golden thrill
Upswept, her eyes drank in far more than light
The frescoes begging long and tender gaze
And pillars of the palest minted green
Bathed in a reverent glow of sunny haze
Protecting small recesses to each side
Mysterious beckoning, less washed in rays
And over all a silence gently drapes:
A chastity as covering overlays.
What words can she describe her wonder with
The atmosphere so memorable a caress
And not a photograph she’s witnessed since
Can capture its vast weight and tenderness
Was it pure fate her favorite was the first
Of each competing church she would assess
Or does a first impression blindly cast
A captivation she could not suppress
And though the time has passed as time will do
She dreams of her green-golden church by day
Her goal and hope on this earth to return
To wander in the stillness as she may
And bask in that embrace of gold once more
Pre-echoing a place of no decay
Attraction of a moment and a glimpse
Impossible to ever cast away