I cant tell you how beautiful

is the flowering of water

from a crude fountain in Florence

on Sunday afternoon in October,

bur fifteen streams at once

shoot up shining before the sun

and fall constantly

in a star-shape on a little

circular pond, bordered by stones,

in which there are six swans.

But then the easy irony of teenagers

posing for one another’s pictures

wedged into the crotch of an ancient, gnarled tree

backfires as it does everywhere and always;

and the innocence of children

whizzing by my bench in rented push-pedal carts

flares up huge and hungry;

and I must remind myself as a graceful woman walks toward me,

her hands clasped behind her neck

like a prisoner, that she has lifted her arms

willingly and with pleasur

to feel more pleasure from the sun.