La Serenissima, in morning light, is beautiful.
But you already knew that. 
Palette of honeyed ochre and ship’s bell bronze, 
water precisely the color of the hand-ground pigment
with which the water of Venice has been painted for centuries, 
angled slats of aquamarine chopped by wakes to agate, 
matte black backlit with raw opal 
and anodized aluminum, rope-work of wisteria, wands
of oleander emerging from hidden gardens. At noon, 
near the boat-yard of the last gondola maker, a violin echoes 
from deep inside an empty cistern. 
Lo and behold. Ecco. 
A swirl of wind-blown ashes from yet another cigarette 
and for a moment you see December snow
in Saint Petersburg, the Lion’s Bridge, crystalline halo
crowning Akhmatova’s defiant silhouette. 

Sunset: bitter orange and almond milk,
sepia retinting the canals with cartographer’s ink
as you study the small gray lagoon crabs
patrolling a kingdom of marble slabs 
descending into the depths; rising almost imperceptibly,
the tide licks at, kisses, then barely spills 
across the top step’s foot-worn, weed-velveted lip 
in slippery caravans, dust-laden rivulets.
So another day’s cargo of terrestrial grit 
enriches their scuttled realm, 
and they make haste, like drunken pirates in a silent film,
erratically but steadfastly, to claim it. 

I should like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow;—
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,
And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats;—
Where in sunshine reaching out
Eastern cities, miles about,
Are with mosque and minaret
Among sandy gardens set,
And the rich goods from near and far
Hang for sale in the bazaar,—
Where the Great Wall round China goes,
And on one side the desert blows,
And with bell and voice and drum
Cities on the other hum;—
Where are forests, hot as fire,
Wide as England, tall as a spire,
Full of apes and cocoa-nuts
And the negro hunters’ huts;—
Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,
And the red flamingo flies
Hunting fish before his eyes;—
Where in jungles, near and far,
Man-devouring tigers are,
Lying close and giving ear
Lest the hunt be drawing near,
Or a comer-by be seen
Swinging in a palanquin;—
Where among the desert sands
Some deserted city stands,
All its children, sweep and prince,
Grown to manhood ages since,
Not a foot in street or house,
Not a stir of child or mouse,
And when kindly falls the night,
In all the town no spark of light.
There I’ll come when I’m a man
With a camel caravan;
Light a fire in the gloom
Of some dusty dining-room;
See the pictures on the walls,
Heroes, fights and festivals;
And in a corner find the toys
Of the old Egyptian boys.