In Italy - 3. Duomo Poem by John Koethe

Something hung in the air, settled in my mind
Ana stayed there. I sometimes wonder
What I set about to find, and what intention,
However tentative, hid behind the veil
That evening in the dormitory, and is hiding still
Behind each day's interrogation, each successive station
On this road I've followed now for almost forty years.
It isn't poetry, for the poems are just a pretext
For a condition I have no name for, floating beyond language
Like the thought of heaven, but less defined.

I kept it to myself until I thought it spoke to me
In my own voice, in words in which I recognized my name.
I wasn't there. The streets I'd walked through just a week ago
Were empty, there was silence in the square
In front of the cathedral, and the light in the Galleria
Was the clear light of a dream, of a fixed flame.
The places I had seen were places on a page.
The person I had been was sitting in a room,
Dreaming of a distant city and a different room
And a moment when the world seemed old again, and strange.

I find it hard to talk about myself directly.
The things are say are true, and yet they feel like exercises
In evasion, with the ground shifting beneath my feet
As the subject changes with each changing phrase.
The cathedral wasn't tall, but it dominated the square
Like a Gothic wedding cake, its elaborate facade
Masking a plain interior, much simpler than Charters' or
Notre Dame's.
Standing in the vault I had the sense of being somewhere else,
Of being someone else, of floating free of the contingencies
Of personality and circumstance that bore my name.

I went outside and climbed the stairs to the roof.
Behind the spires the old stone shapes gave way to office towers
and factories
And then the suburbs beyond, all melting into air, into mere air,
Leaving just the earth, and the thought of something watching
from afar.
I climbed back down and went inside. The sense of dislocation
That I'd felt at first felt fainter now, as things resumed their proper
order.
There were vendors selling guidebooks, and people talking.
Somewhere in the gloom a prayer began. I stared up at the dome
One last time, and then walked out into the sunlight
And the anonymity and freedom of the crowded square.