Lying here
my body feels like the Bell Tower 
in the Palazzo Pubblico
Stretching upward
to fly through the white
Longing to reach the blue
My body a seed
planted a foot beneath the soil,
I can see a crack in the cobbled piazza stones
If I could reach my arm just a bit higher,
I might push a finger through to the air.

With a little sunlight
With a little water
With a little wonder

A branch my might sprout from my fingernail,
and call forth the other three
and bring along my thumb

And give them courage to push through the Earth
into the light
to see the white
to ponder the blue

Perhaps a shoulder might follow
Upward Upward Upward
dragging my neck and head along,
until my torso is above the earth
like a Bell Tower

My feet planted on the the ancient stones
my veins and tendons and sinews and ligaments
reaching down into the Earth like the tree I will become

A Bell Tower knows its foundation is strong
allows itself to lean a little,
as it has done since 1297

Should I stand on two feet again,
I shall try to tilt to one side
with as much grace,
and I will not fall over

Only humans mourn their imperfect state
tower stairs are humbled to withstand
the feet of young and old
their bells rung by the curious and jubilant

A Bell Tower does not feel hobbled to its place
And finds grace in immobility

It is happy to be in the presence of the Sun,
the Moon, 
the Stars

Whipped by the Winds,
the eons and wars
it does not care about its battle scars

Last night as the thunders roared
and the lightning sang
I lay awake dreaming of Siena

I wonder if the Bell Tower remembers me,
and the old Italian who followed me up the narrow stairway,
grabbing my ass as I climbed

I turned to scold him and he said,
“What do you want me to do?
It is there like the Tower itself.
You should be proud.”

Only a fool would argue with that.