Venetian Farewells
They’re always the saddest,
Venetian farewells . . .
—Alexandr Blok
The most extravagant light
Is Venetian I know & I have
This on the best authority—
Gore himself told me twice
Over dinner at Michael’s place
In Rome & yet I think
Ruskin considered Venice an
Especially stony story & I love
How Trude proposed Venice as
The world’s unconscious
Our dank lagoon-cradle of all art
Just as Veronica Franco’s
Undressing of moonlight along
The Grand Canal mirrored
The light Joseph praised as he
Sketched the dawn’s blush
Brushing across the face
Of Santa Maria della Salute
Most men thought Byron a bit
Light-handed with their wives
Naming an arch of last goodbyes
The Bridge of Sighs still I’ll admit
There’s nowhere I’ve felt ever
Quite so much myself—& I miss
My Venice village by the Pacific
As deeply as its sister La Serenissima
I miss my Craftsman house on Rialto
Masked Carnivale raccoons & fat
Possum shadows on its skylights
At full moon . . . a soul knows they’re
Always the saddest Venetian farewells
Copyright © 2025 by David St. John. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 15, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I always look to the music of memory in poems for the ways we might embody the presences of places of historical beauty or great art. They may be extraordinary, even sacred, but they often feel so ephemeral as to be at the point of disappearance, of loss—yet they still provide our best context for being human in an inhuman world. Time seems most urgent and fraught when we feel its wreckage at real places, with real friends, and seeing the intimate losses that come from losing both.”
—David St. John
David St. John
David St. John is the author of over ten collections of poetry, including Study for the World's Body: New and Selected Poems (Perennial, 1994), which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He currently serves on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets.