Passeggiata by Cyndi MacMillan

The Dance of Lights in Venice by Marek Langowski, contemporary, year unknown.

Passeggiata
 
                         Passeggiata   noun (Especially in Italy or Italian-speaking areas)
                         a leisurely walk or stroll, especially one taken in the evening
 

O Venice, you forever intoxicate,
enfold your love-struck pilgrims in misty indigo --
then reward implied confessions
with masquerades and this stirring caligo.
 
Adored, the abiding blur
of cobbled salizzade, every potent lamp,
bridges below gargoyles, gondolas
& their hosts of canals,
 
yet, how regal,
even your dampness.
 
O, glass of bride, Palazzo,
wicked courtesans revered for likened minds,
carnival, Bellini, pretty George Sand,
& Vivaldi’s perpetual seasons; all subjects
of your realm.  Antiquity glazes
the commonplace in a princely azure,
cloaks the awed in a velvet haze.
 
Behind walls, your citizens dine,
while splendor is framed by ancient sills;
windows arch towards dreams,  cap the night,
as dusk refills each starved heart it finds--
 
O, Ravishing Venice,
how do they shut their blinds.

Cyndi MacMillan

This poem was written for the 20 Poem Challenge.

Cyndi MacMillan poetry has recently appeared in Grain Magazine and the Fieldstone Review.  Her verse, short fiction and novel-in-progress resentfully compete for her attention.  She lives in New Hamburg, Ontario, home to North America’s largest working water wheel. Coffee and family allow ideas to percolate.