Poem

Le Ripe Dreaming

  

 

Oh, to be in Tuscany

Now that spring is almost there,

Striding up the forest track,

Breathing sweet Chianti air.

For there is that hill to climb

Through dappled woods, home to boar,

Fallow deer, nightingales; while

Overhead, brown buzzards soar.

From its summit, opposite,

One spies beige towns perched on high

Above lingered lines of vines

And tree-shrouded homes nearby.

Below, unseen slopes descend

To an ancient Roman road,

A war-time patriots’ cave,

A dancing stream, slight-shadowed,

And local stone farm buildings,

With haughty cypress guardians:

All encompassed by Le Ripe,

A name as old as Ossian’s.

Agricola (Contributor)