In Rapallo

by Edward Reilly

Old Homer sleeps safe in the Protestant cemetery,
the son long gone to his private Ithaka,
having sung at length of OY TIE and Jederman:
a half hour spent wandering by the shore,
coffee and a cold bun.

The Madonna has been restored joyfully,
her surcoat as blue as the summer bay,
paint still glistening in the mid-morning light
my devotions a bouquet and spluttering candles
a soft chorale at Mass.

Hemingway’s mask glowers over the bar
Where he and the hangers-on used to carouse:
then here is the hotel where Nietzsche once lived,
and Sibleius sat here dreaming of another voyage:
I hum ‘Finlandia’.

They say the lynx has now returned to Italy
and I lay, listening for a sound in the forest,
waiting for her to sing to me once again,
O lynx keep watch on my fire, the clouds have dispersed.
I pray, guard this orchard.