by Josephine Zell

RIDING THE BUS IN CAMPANIA

Red tile roofs and brown stone castles
Solid against a blue gauze sky
Rise above tranquil yellow wheatfields
And rich black earth that stops the eye.

Stencilled under brooding mountains
Is a city gleaming in the sun;
Towers, campanili, undistinguished
Homes where life ends as it was begun.

Emerald umbrella pines
In two straight lines shade a painter's road,
But we're swept along by oleanders
For miles of flowers, white and rose.

-Originally appeared in Neovictorian/Cochlea,  
Vol. IX No.2, Spring-Summer 2006; (I) from
FOUR POEMS FROM AN ITALIAN JOURNEY