Sometimes a Great Notion

Living statues everywhere
mime the mighty act.
Pilgrims, smiling for posterity,
uphold the old tree of stone.

We almost didn’t come here
on this shiny day in Pisa.
Too cool for clichés,
we’ve seen zombie kitsch before.

Or so we reckoned,
like snobs.
The icon is humbled magnificence;
beauty settled, reclaimed by Pachamama.
Suddenly, miraculously, we join the multitude.

Centuries away other tourists rise from
breakfasts of lumberjack gravy.
Headed to the john they pass snapshots
of grave men on colossal stumps,
nailed to their fallen toil.

In the Baptistery of San Giovanni
a diva with sunglasses atop black hair
steps into the center of the mob every half hour.
“Silencio,” she commands,
and then sounds the sacred.

I’m edged toward tears by the acoustic marriage
of science and spirit.
My soulmate weeps, washed unbound.

At that moment an undead American
doused in cornpone cologne
saunters past us on fat feet.
“It’s a nice tune, but you can’t dance to it,”
he haws.

By God Uncle Sam
could stand dunking.
Go down go down
by the River Arno.
Crunch locusts with saints
and smear honey in your beard.