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Alcantara -The Bridge

Writer's picture: Chris NashChris Nash

Love lingers under the lemon trees


where the fragrant light, her sicily

of skin-caressing sun, slyly

stirs us, into her sour compositions,

laughter’s radiance bright and sudden,

we glow in shadows of curiosity.



The trees weep cold tears of war,

     Love’s poor root shudders to endure.

Twilight wanders to our empty table

whose ancient eyes well up in song

from lost borderlands of longing;

Sable bats swoop along song-lines

drawn out from the dusk of a violin,

her hands serenade wings of parting.

The trees weep cold tears of war,

   Love’s poor root shudders to endure.

Night falls with its ebony calligraphy

our characters inked forever apart

at either end of plagues’ geography;

Among cafe tables, in love’s growing dark,

couples dance, to drown times’ sorrows

flowers of bitter-fragrant lemon tomorrows.

 The trees weep cold tears of war,

    Love’s poor root shudders to endure.


Notes:

Alcántara is a river and a bridge of Roman origins found in the western part of Sicily. The name comes from the Arabic القنطرة, al-Qanṭara - meaning an 'arch'.

The lemon plant originates in Burma, where it is found growing wild: from there it crossed the Middle East, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. During Muslim rule agricultural products such as oranges, lemons, pistachio and sugarcane were brought to Sicily

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