Florence
If only Florence flourished outside my bedroom window,
the city which taught lessons to Leonardo
in that smooth Tuscan tongue,
sparking his fire to fierceness,
and raised Raphael to paint godlike scenes
in the colors of cool immortality,
the city of the peerless poet,
Dante who, undaunted, walked hell and heaven,
the city whose dome atop its Duomo
Brunelleschi made immemorial.
In Firenze, where Medicis fought,
where treasures are in the stone you tread,
sweet Florence, fairest of all flowers:
if only I could reach you with one rapid step,
I would stroll by that miracle each morning
through your streets and cloisters, and be content.
