Reflection on Palermo

That was my voice, there, in Palermo,
crying out from the foot of the throne of the Gods,
where Dante sat out his final years.
He believed that the Jews would one day
go to Heaven.

The glorious country of Italy
could not fathom and spat upon that thought.
They cast upon it ordeals of flame and ice,
struck it with rods until the sky itself screamed
that Moses was heathen and Dante a crook.

That was my voice, there, where I did
not speak of mother, did not speak of moments,
of fleeting seconds or the brevity of years,
insensitivity or cynicism. I did not feel
the aforementioned story suffocating my presence.
I did not know it. I parted the sea of minutiae
and found the truth of that place.

I will not expose that revelation, but I wonder
sometimes if Dante lofted himself
from this unworthy sphere on the day he died
and found his way to Heaven, and whether
it was all that he had cracked it up
to be.