Ca’ del Pomo Granà (The house of the pomegranate tree)

Some hauled their dead in a water hearse to Isola di San Michele cemetery in the Venetian Lagoon. Carried chrysanthemums. Filed through Gothic archways at the side of the stone cloister.

Some languished in the Piombi prisons in Doge’s Palace. The reclusive old noble woman, the Ghetto Jews in Cannaregio borough, feral covens of cats, and the mad.

Others arrived at earliest dawn with fractured lives. Many found solace. Yellow-legged seagulls. Wooden bridges. Smells of seaweed, clams and squid with lemon, fresh-baked bread and espresso. All those who loved pomegranate trees. Magnolia. Palm trees. The calle, alleyways, streets of the city: palazzi on timber platforms supported by stakes. Faded teal blue shutters. Immured in its blinding light.

Adriatic tides

mingling with the wash of the sea

full moon     plum purple

Ilona Martonfi