Anghiari is medieval, a sleeve sloping down  
A steep hill, suddenly sweeping out
To the edge of a cliff, and dwindling.
But far up the mountain, behind the town,  
We too were swept out, out by the wind,  
Alone with the Tuscan grass.

Wind had been blowing across the hills
For days, and everything now was graying gold  
With dust, everything we saw, even
Some small children scampering along a road,  
Twittering Italian to a small caged bird.  
We sat beside them to rest in some brushwood,  
And I leaned down to rinse the dust from my face.

I found the spider web there, whose hinges  
Reeled heavily and crazily with the dust,
Whole mounds and cemeteries of it, sagging  
And scattering shadows among shells and wings.  
And then she stepped into the center of air  
Slender and fastidious, the golden hair
Of daylight along her shoulders, she poised there,  
While ruins crumbled on every side of her.  
Free of the dust, as though a moment before  
She had stepped inside the earth, to bathe herself.

I gazed, close to her, till at last she stepped  
Away in her own good time.

Many men
Have searched all over Tuscany and never found  
What I found there, the heart of the light  
Itself shelled and leaved, balancing  
On filaments themselves falling. The secret
Of this journey is to let the wind  
Blow its dust all over your body,
To let it go on blowing, to step lightly, lightly
All the way through your ruins, and not to lose
Any sleep over the dead, who surely  
Will bury their own, don’t worry.