Tuesday, December 29, 2009

remnants of lives lived on the watery edge



on longing



on longing
A Place in Memory


“Memory’s images, once they are fixed in words, are erased,” Polo said.
“Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it.”
a fragment of a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan
from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino



The dust, the mirrors, the views,
the remnants of lives lived on the watery edge.
Faded moments and the residue of time
visible to those who care to look.

The glimmering patina of gold leaf shimmering behind locked doors
and the muffled sound of footsteps and voices.

Reflections in mirrors, stained with time,
others dark with forgetting.

Echoes of forgotten melodies,
lingering like perfume.

The evanescent light
lending a rosy glow to the crumbling architecture.

vedute di venezia -
canaletto, sargent, turner, monet, constable and the others, brush in hand,
strokes on canvas left as memories in frozen time.

The reflections, mirrors, water, claiming ownership to moments unrecorded and forgotten.
And me, still listening for the echoes and the murmurs, the water constantly
lapping at the shore.

-Ewa Monika Zebrowski