A painting of two hands almost touching with a cloudy background behind them. It is an edit of The Creation of Man in the Sistine Chapel.

A Florentine Poem

“The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and pain.” - Dante Alighieri

Piazza Michelangelo

Stone steps, sun warmed and solid.
The winged wind blows with the chill
Of rain past and rain to come.
A shaft of sunlight pierces the cloudy veil
Resting like a hallowed halo
On the red roofs below.

Hills, turned indigo with distance and rain,
Slumber softly on the horizon,
Holding in their valleys ancient villages.
The sun descends to its rest
As those gathered rush to capture
Its fading glory.

Laughter dances around the square.
Friends toast paper cups of cheap wine
To the week past and the week to come.
Dusk descends with feather-light touch
And the last glimmers of amber fade
From the river’s surface.

- o. s.