THE VOICES OF SICILY

How the world has changed
when nothing as something
as somewhere
ushers in the morning rain.

Bordered
by the moon and sea
I am drawn to you
Sicily
in search of me
and the voices
left behind.

What once was
never may be again,
except for traces
of treasured faces
that pass into
the myth of memory
and now stand before me
at the morning market.

In the market place,
where musical threads
and melodious cries
are weaved
between vendors and buyers,
songs are born
at first light
and fill the air
with nostalgic scents
of smiles
and Sunday dinners.

Standing within the fusion
of reality and sentimentality
in a world between time
and timelessness,
the seeds of solitude
and ripened dreams
are trapped
inside the night-tide
of my mind.

The past,
more faraway than near,
can fill the margins
beneath a fractured surface,
but only life lived
with ambrosial smiles
and second chances
can fill the space
in my heart.

© JOHN PISCATELLA