Without the red splashed through the yellow, in this ancient holy city, like an oil spill in the river, the gray of the praying buildings would have no purpose. The gold-yellow itself is not a divine cluster of leaves. They are blessed and scattered across some private walled-in postage stamp of holy ground of grass, alas, and no it's more than that. You don't walk on this hallowed ground. You don't pray on it. This is the bed of the sea where you see silver one minute and gold the next -- church colors gold and silver, any way you look at them. The fine network of summer is ending. The snow-blue sky now this moment is holier than this city. We are here but we remain as unknown to this city as its lovers' true motives, as unknowable as each pirate or deposed monarch wearing a blessed monocle, strutting the narrow streets. Arriving uninvited is risky. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THREE SONNETS by RICHARD WILBUR WHEN LOVE WAS BORN by SARA TEASDALE IMITATIONS OF HORACE: ODE IV, 1 by ALEXANDER POPE THE FIRST THANKSGIVING DAY [1621] by MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON THE DEAD HEROES by ISAAC ROSENBERG A MINUET ON REACHING THE AGE OF FIFTY by GEORGE SANTAYANA |