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the sleeping dogs of erice
stanley plumly
at half-a-mile the thirty marble churches and cobbled
marble streets feel light as air above the sky-blue depths
of the tyrrhenian, feel able, in fact, to float as on the platform
of the mountain of a cloud, la montagna del signore,
though the 1 would make more common sense
since the gods of the many mountains around the mediterranean
have each had their day conquering the history of the island,
arriving in a morning fog from sea on a schedule fit for war.
right now, first light, the night ghosts of the air have risen
off the sea or fallen from sky or both at once, it doesn't matter --
from this balcony it's as if we have 2 into life
in a wholly different way, purer in the purity of il velo di venere.
it will take all morning for the mist to disappear,
especially from the slick stones of medieval village paths
that still pass for streets and the shining stained-glass windows
so bright they'll stop the sunlight until the afternoon --
which is when i see them first, curled up for naps
in an awkward weedy courtyard, four stories down, spaced
as if assigned. six of them at least, though their numbers tend
to change, depending on the day and where they trail,
usually at the edges of the town: which is when i see them running,
sometimes chasing, sometimes playing, but always together,
but not always, because the large dog lying or sleeping in the traffic
of the 3 umberto, is, i'm sure, at heart, one of them --
lean the way these hunters are living off the land:
the kind, when i was a kid in the country of ohio, we called strays,
dogs who'd been let out from the backs of trucks or cars to die
or survive, burned with sores and starving. these, though, are italians,
sicilians, who understand the value of community and numbers,
the 4 forces of the pack, so that when i see them now
at different times at different intermissions, nuzzling or mating,
i'd swear they know themselves, the mythic body back
to the nursing loving founding of old rome, mist turned into stone.
and stone turned, 5, to ruin, back into mist. these dogs
are ruins, 6, cut to shape, interchangeable through time,
ghosts of ghosts, the blood-veined lily and lilac color of white marble.
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