Landscape, with Early Frost and a Dream Interior

Dear heart, before the sun can overthrow all the sturm und drang caused by restlessness in the sheets, too much caffeine, and that over-decorated danseuse named guilt waltzing in your ballrooms especially when nights are longer, look close at the beds in the garden— There are tiny spires beneath summer’s leftover foliage, cities of frost spangled with brittle diadems. Look at the miniature hanging bridges on the outskirts, the lined streets leading to the plaza devoid of movement. Spires, casements shut: who’s sleeping there? who’ll ring the bells in the bell-tower? In a few hours, it’ll be warm enough to melt them all: not even a sigh left behind. Meanwhile, in the Cinema Paradiso that plays all the time in my head, the music in the opening scene is always indistinguishable from the breeze that parts the curtains, draws the eye in toward the complicated interiors. There’s the linen cloth, the table where lemons lie on a ceramic plate. Maybe I’m making parts of this up. Maybe the plate is tin, or maybe it’s a bowl. But there is no mistaking the wistful light that brushes them, so that even in black and white or sepia, a spray of citrus, a stroke of rosemary, perforates the air.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.