Three Short Poems About Italy Poem by Leslie Philibert

Capri

roofless cubes, spidery with wire,
cakes of azure and enzian,
above at the Villa San Michele
Rilke smiles down at the broken beaches,
coves of defiant waves, compacted sea

Pompeii

a chessboard of honest stones
open to a sky of hushed shouts;
we huddle in a boned frame
of another life, a stopped day

Napoli

warm and secret, olive eyed
an infinite beauty makes a new face
as we gaze as apes from a bus;
an act of moment