THE WORLD FROM THE TABLE
We spoke of art and travel—of the soft paintings
of Morandi, the dusty layers on wine bottles,
the search for the artist’s identity. Even Da Vinci’s
unfinished paintings. Then, of course, Manet
whose Olympia stared out of her canvas.
You must visit the home of Frida Kahlo, too!
Carlos said. Like this, we traveled the world
from the table. And after drinks and dinner,
we walked the gardens with flashlights finding
the hidden green tomatoes, nasturtiums, rabbit-
eyes fleeing. Then—how to describe it? The tall,
branched antlers of the big bucks highlighted
against the moon. Quiet, you said, don’t scare them.
They settled in and ate the fallen apples.
The night released the smell of ripened fruit.
COSMOLOGY
A red curtain flutters
in a soft wind.
A man sneaks through—
into the cathedral.
Hell, I think.
He will go to hell
to avoid the cost of 3 euro.
Then forgiveness.
Every sin is followed by regret,
if only in denial.
I study the floor
which is made up of hundreds
of mosaics.
The founder of the church
claims to have slain a dragon.
As evidence, whale bones are mounted
behind the altar.
The boy who sold me the ticket shrugs
(He’s a student of philosophy).
I walk on a cosmology of stone.
The floor an expanding universe
in which the man disappears
through the side door.
THE PATH OF PIGEONS
This is the path of pigeons:
they sweep above the canals
between Venetian buildings
and land on lamp posts.
They read the old newspapers
held in tourists’ hands.
The news is the same:
the same autocrat
tricking the same people.
Trite, I know.
Still, it is interesting
when the names change:
Il Duce becomes Il Presidente
and the poets write out
their new poems.
Tonight the theatre is presenting
Shakespeare’s King Lear.
The pigeons flock
to the square.
THE ISONZO RIVER
At seven, the church bells rang
from three churches in the valley.
Timing off by seconds—
one tripped the other like a series of memories.
Talk to me, they said like abused
children alone in their rooms.
It was a small fog that settled over the river
and the sun had barely opened its palms.
Even God had trouble waking.
I had him beat, for once!
The river was green, translucent,
holy water, and when I put my feet in
they were healed.
The stress of reaching back, gone.
The fallen baptized and resurrected
(if you believe in such things).
History was vanquished by nature.
God was now in the mountains,
in the mysterious waters
that cracked it open like a prehistoric egg.
In this moment of geological time
I was lucky.
Bio:
Robert Castagna is a photographer turned poet, recognized for his work documenting the borders of America with a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship and Artist’s Resource Trust Grant. He teaches poetry at the Medford Senior Center and has received the Medford Arts Council Grant for the publication of an anthology of poetry by senior citizens. His poems and art have been published in Italian Americana, VIA, and Diagram.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 