Foraging for the Ideal
The lights of Macerata, Loreto, Treia
pulse across each hilltop town
and fireflies
swing their lamps
over the earth
to echo the stars.
There’s the scent of
laurel, rosemary, lavender
wild mint and fennel.
L’amore che move il sole
e l’altre stelle warms the
perfume of my lover’s skin.
I follow the poets
– so help me –
searching through
the emptiness without
& the darkness within
through villages atilt
after the quake,
through mud that slides
Senigallia’s town to the Adriatic,
in a city through blackshirts
who chant their presence,
arms raised in the Roman salute.
We forage here,
we forage there
for l’ideale che illumina.