Rosemarie Crisafi

The Blessing of the Water


Mezzojuso in winter:
orange and lemon trees’
flaming leaves
light Palermo’s hills.
Come for the Byzantine rite
“a vulata d’a palumma”.

Kneel,

fertile soil to knees, hands
in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Somnolent by the water,
a dove is freed
from the bowels of the church.