I Dreamt I Was the Apennines

by Brett Rutherford

I dreamt I was the Apennines, a thousand miles
of me from Liguria to Reggio, on to my toe-hold
across the water in Sicily. I was so large
that a cloud-front was but a single breath
into my caverned lungs. My sleep withheld
the fury of volcanos, the wrath of avalanche.
I hoard one tiny glacier to ice my summer fever.

Then Zeus came back in his dark thundercloud —
welcome after so many centuries of slumber —
to tell me his temple had been restored in Athens
and that a sacrificial fire now burned anew,
to the despair of the bearded Orthodox.

He brought me a great earthquake. Ah,
I wanted it to go on forever. All the way
to Rome, they will be feeling my fervor.
Let Paris burn, and Lisbon shudder!
Down, Babylon — Atlantis, sink!
Rise, seas, above Poseidon’s head!
Look at them running, the little ants!
Tyrants and breakers of oaths, flee
from your shabby brickwork assemblies!

Now that I am awakened, I summon
the poets, musicians, painters, and madmen.
Come to the Abruzzi and its sheltering peaks,
where the secret police will never find you.
Come to my untamed forests beneath,
where the Italian wolf still suckles Romulus,
and where the brown bear alone abides.

Forte e gentile, mountains of bandits,

hide-out of excommunicated patriots,
refuge of Partisans disguised as shepherds.

I dreamt I was the Apennines,
and one day I will walk to Rome
with boulders as my sandals, mendicant
to bring the stones of Chthonic temples back,
halls of dark serpentine ophiolite,
to rest upon the stones of the Nazarene.

These things take time. A volcano
would help to move my plans along.
I will tread on landslide, mudslide and flood.
Sink holes will be my footprints, but I will come.
Mountains are more patient than clouds,
more full of purpose than the churning sea.
Tremble, Rome, before my bells of stone!

Photo: Colossus of the Apennines by Giambologna.