Ending the Day
Dusk creeps across the landscape
leaving the mustard-yellow meadows
lighting the cypress silhouettes
that march in rows across the sky.
Sipping our sparkling wine
we taste again the flavors of the day,
recount the pleasures seen and heard
anticipate the pleasures still to come.
Our guide books promise us the moon.
We read of ruins and of city walls
encircling medieval towers and squares.
And here we wait in fascinated fear
while the light shrinks and crawls away
to see the wild boar, snorting,
come out beneath our ancient door.
Ending the Day
His head, mounted above the food shop door,
rough, bristling, snout and malevolent eyes,
warns us, frightens the children.
We buy our cheese and bread,
planning our Italian picnic,
haunted by his old presence.
In the museum the Etruscan tombs
surround us with the skillful hunters,
the threatening boars.
After supper we sit on the terrace
watching the darkening woods
that circle us on every side.
Dusk creeps across the landscape
lighting the cypress silhouettes
that march in rows across the sky.
We wait in fascinated fear
while the light shrinks and crawls away
to see the wild boar, snorting,
Invade our peaceful space.
Lari Smith
Siena Spannochia 4/95