A lightning flash over the lagoon

displaces me—we’re running again

headlong down

the flight of blinding stone

steps, towards noon,

grabbing a cup of iced red melon

before we adjourn
               to the cool interior

               of the Scuola della Carità,

               straight to the one picture

               you insist that I see: La Tempesta.

               All I can do is mumble, stutter,

               struck first by water

               the same thick blue-green texture
of the canal,

and imagine the same smell

drifting from a stagnant pool

five centuries old. Only then do I feel

the centrifugal pull

of the strange, anonymous couple

seemingly in exile
               or on the run

               —from what?—war-torn

               European ruin?—

               or Renaissance Eden?

               They have no option

               but to indulge their own

               remaining swagger or quotidian
demands—she to pause,

remove her dress

and lay it on the grass

as if this questionable bliss

were still Paradise.

She sits and outstares

whoever so much as dares
               to raise an eyebrow at her wild

               demeanour, her excuse the need

               to suckle her child

               but she’s nude—

               her legs lazily spread—

               with only her shoulders shawled

               as if against the cold
or a guard’s approbation,

while her man, urbane,

but with gypsy skin,

cocky in his two-tone

stockings, seems almost to grin

as the storm crackles on,

knowing they must remain
               exactly as the artist painted the scene,

               their passion

               at once revealed and forbidden;

               both public domain

               and private garden

               lit like Golgotha, but serene;

               an omen.
			*
               You came here before, one bone-

               chilling winter, with reason

               to be alone;

               fell for the out-of-season

               muted tone

               of rich desolation;

               fell, like a noble Venetian,
for this painting, its blend

of sky, water and land

in colours illumined

by the storm. Now you stand

in your own footsteps and find,

perhaps, reaching for my hand,

how we might spend
               a life of love and subterfuge,

               making a silent pledge

               to hold our own selves hostage,

               venturing to the very edge

               of who we are. We enter the image

               and wait for the deluge…

               The deserted bridge
takes no-one anywhere.

The lightning is little more

than a chalky tear

in the cloud, a razored blur—

but it dragged us here

to witness how the viewer

has most to fear
               and we wait, stoic

               as that enigmatic stork

               on the roof, for the storm to break—

               electric baroque

               still decades away—stark

               staring mad for thinking the crack

               in the foreground is a snake,
or giddy still from the vaporetto,

believing there’s a shadow…

a faint, human glow

that lives within the pentimento,

managing to show

how even depicted happenings can flow…

And so
               it is that I learn

               of the other woman,

               the one the artist chose to drown

               beneath new layers of green

               and brown—

               never to explain

               why, or elucidate her pain.
We re-emerge from the small room,

stumbling from studied gloom

into day. The storm

has passed but lingers as a dream

               in spacetime,

sharpening our sun-blazed form

to a bold continuum.
			*
               Our planes

leave in different directions

               but hit the same turbulence

and we plummet—sense

               a simultaneous

veering terror and stolid confidence

               as we glance
from separate cabin windows

               at the cloud, a canvas

stretched beneath us

               into the future, the noise

of the engine relentless

               as a rumbling loss

while we advance.


Notes:

Based upon the painting ‘La Tempesta’ by Giorgione,

c. 1509, oil on canvas, 82 x 73 cm