At the Center

Today the sky is Italian blue.
The blue of sapphires and Mediterranean seas,
the kind of blue that seems almost too good to be true.
The kind that makes clouds pristinely white,
the kind that causes you to gaze in wonder at the place you find yourself.

Breezes blow and grape vines shift,
their giant leaves casting shadows,
framed by that Italian blue.
And in their wandering waving
I find my own wavering,
no matter how blue a sky.

The hill steeply climbs
graded into plots, gardened into life.
In late afternoon it sits in shade,
this part of the yard catches morning sun.
The sky above it, though, is still Italian blue.
And as I sit watching vegetables and children grow,
I see my reflection in a yellow building’s window.
I am older than I remember,
more tired; weary with wrestling.

When I was young
I knew how to pray.
And in my prayers life was framed in Italian blue,
because I believed,
and so it would be.
And that blue made clouds white,
caused earth to catch morning sun,
and afternoon shade.

Today the sky is Italian blue,
and I beneath it can only groan
and ache, uncertain of words and
undiminishing desires, lost in a maze of yellow buildings,
reaching for a cloud, smiling at a child;
knowing her ache, though young, is old for one so young.
Still, I smile and I reach, now a little afraid of a sky so blue, too blue.
I gaze in wonder
I groan
I wrestle
I waver
I believe.