"Once in Florence"
by Tresha Faye Haefner
After Ellen Bass
A bouquet of kestrals opened over the Duomo.
Wings bright as flower petals, they circled
over the sun-burned tops of town
and landed on the church,
like grey ministers, coming to pray
again.
Once I would have prayed, Lord let me
rise up, like that, flying over all
that is human.
Marble haloes on the heads of statues,
plates of bread and the lace offerings
of salt drying on the shores of the sea.
Lord, I still love
loving the world like that.
All that is lovely spread below me.
Mountain tops, mouths,
romantic languages lingering
In the ears of the blue trees.
But God of distraction,
I’m tired of all the distractions.
The choiceless choosing.
Let me have one moment that rises
over every other desire.
Let it be enough
to stand still, under this one church,
eight hundred images
of Christ suffering.
The pigeons, nailed to their mortal perches.
Lifting into the sun, like petals
blowing open.
A violinist in the shadow of the stones
releasing songs from the wood, for all of us,
for free.
A bouquet of kestrals opened over the Duomo.
Wings bright as flower petals, they circled
over the sun-burned tops of town
and landed on the church,
like grey ministers, coming to pray
again.
Once I would have prayed, Lord let me
rise up, like that, flying over all
that is human.
Marble haloes on the heads of statues,
plates of bread and the lace offerings
of salt drying on the shores of the sea.
Lord, I still love
loving the world like that.
All that is lovely spread below me.
Mountain tops, mouths,
romantic languages lingering
In the ears of the blue trees.
But God of distraction,
I’m tired of all the distractions.
The choiceless choosing.
Let me have one moment that rises
over every other desire.
Let it be enough
to stand still, under this one church,
eight hundred images
of Christ suffering.
The pigeons, nailed to their mortal perches.
Lifting into the sun, like petals
blowing open.
A violinist in the shadow of the stones
releasing songs from the wood, for all of us,
for free.
Tresha Faye Haefner’s poetry appears, or is forthcoming in several journals and magazines, most notably Blood Lotus, Blue Mesa Review, The Cincinnati Review, Five South, Hunger Mountain, Mid-America Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, Radar, Rattle, TinderBox and Up the Staircase Quarterly. Her work has garnered several accolades, including the 2011 Robert and Adele Schiff Poetry Prize, and a 2012, 2020, and 2021 nomination for a Pushcart. Her first manuscript, "Pleasures of the Bear" was a finalist for prizes from both Moon City Press and Glass Lyre Press. It was published by Pine Row Press under the title When the Moon Had Antlers in 2023. Find her at www.thepoetrysalon.com.