Sunrise Over Cassis

In the semi-darkness white buildings loom, not fully

formulated, and beside them, the gray vineyards, the quiet before dawn;

Judas counts his silver coins, but olive trees contorted

in wild prayer enter the earth ever more deeply.

Where is the sun! But it’s still cold

and a humble landscape spreads around us;

the stars have gone and priests sleep tight, birds aren’t allowed

to sing in August and only now and then one

stammers like a lazy boy in high school Latin.

It’s four a.m. and despair lives in so many houses.

This is the time when sad philospohers with narrow faces

compose their jaded aphorisms and worn conductors,

who’d brought Bruckner and Mahler back to life that evening,

drift off to sleep unwilling, unapplauded, and whores go home

to their shabby apartments.

                                          We ask that the vineyards,

gray as if coated with volcanic ash, be given life,

and that the great, distant cities awaken from their apathy,

and I ask not to confuse freedom with chaos

and to regain the faith that unites

things seen and sunseen, but doesn’t lull the heart.

Beneath us the sea turns blue and the horizon’s line

grows ever finer, like a slender fillet

that embraces, lovingly and firmly, our turning planet,

and we see fishing boats rock trustfully like gulls

upon the deep, blue waters and a moment later

the sun’s crimson disc emerges from a half circle of hills

and returns the gift of light.