Rosanna Warren
HISTORY AS DECORATION
Float over us, Florence, your banners
of assassination, your most expensive
reds : Brazil, Majorca lichen , cochineal.
Let the Neoplatonic Arno flow
crocus yellow. Let palazzo walls
flaunt quattrocento dyes : "little
monk" and "lion skin." We pay for beauty: beautiful
are gorgeous crimes we cannot feel,
they shone so long ago. And those philosophies
too pretty in spirit ever to be real.
City of fashion. Leonardo chose
the hanged Pazzi conspirator for a theme:
"Tawny cap; black satin vest," he wrote,
"Black sleeveless coat, lined; turquoise
jacket lined with fox; Bernardo di
Bandino Baroncigli; black hose."
So dangled the elegant corpse,
bellafigura
though its tongue stuck out. The keen, gossipy
faces still peer from Ghirlandaio's walls
and from the streets we elbow through today.
History flashes in banknotes. Gold , jade, corals
twinkle from hand to hand, while the spectral glare
of Savonarola's sunset bonfire licks the square
and his cries ascend and blend with Vespers bells.
Rosanna Warren teaches in the University Professors Program at Boston
University. A collection of her poetry,
Each Leaf Shines Separate,
will be
published this fall by W W Norton .
