Above St. Peter’s Square

My sister once told me that when she was in Rome, she wanted to die.

She was standing on a crowded rooftop.

Under her worn and cheaply made American sneakers

The yellowed Roman stones, constructed who knows when,

Bore her weight as indifferently

As the millions of others who stood there before

For reverence, for awe, for spectacle

The stones did not care, nor did anyone that day

It was an eternity of light and heat

As she pressed her way to the dizzy precipice

And looked down the crumbling wall

Eyes skipping past the few wrought railings of modest balconies

To the mass of bodies crushed in the narrows below

Spilling into the square beyond

A marching army, an overturned cornucopia of people

Covering the ivory stones of the massive courtyard to the Basilica

Under the azure sky, everything was caught in a cloud

A city of heaven on earth, held here by humanity

Strange sweat mingling on many skins

The meaty weight of many bodies disappeared

As a chant rose from the crowd

A strambotto* of tongues and teeth

In a dance of praise, a sonorous cry to Him most high

An unearthly hymn sung in unison

By a nation of strangers finally come home

With her throat wide open

Her own familiar song lost in the great cry

Rising from the square below

Subito estasi 

Sconoscuito estasi**

And her feet felt and found the ledge

Thighs quivering as she stepped up and out

Rising like a sigh

From the rooftop gathering

Perched on the crumbling stone, 

Arms thrown wide, eyes closed, streaming tears of utter joy

Knowing in the depth of her ecstasy that no other moment

No second, or breath, or touch

Small or great

Would she ever again feel so sublimely exhausted

Muscles jumping, ticking to escape her inexorable bones

Eyes watering in their salty seas at the glaring bright

Heart torn wide with rapture 

Never would another moment be so perfect

And it was all she could do

To step back down into her weary self

To willingly accept the vast era of ordinary years, of life

It was everything she could do

Not to leap. 

*Strambotto �" originally a rhyme scheme for poetry, developed into a dance because folk songs were written using that form; quick paced and lively

**Subito estasi, sconscuito estasi �" Sudden ecstacy, unknown ecstacy