I heard tales of it on trains, from tireless travelers
And then its name would beckon from the drowsing hulls
Of steamers docked on Venice’s back piers
Untroubled by the wild din of gulls.

I could so easily have boarded one
And seen what might have been the stuff of fables,
The spoutings of a circle of medieval whales
Turned, by shipwrecked sorcerers, to stone.

Then I’d have landed on a strange, bright shore
To climb a looming cliff side toward a tower
Whose ramparts seemed to touch the clouds’ loose hem
And stare from the turret’s jagged diadem

Through exes meant for crossbows in the solid walls
At fishing boats? swimmers? other steamers?
Or rumored clouds of islands linked by still canals
Whose waters dull the wistful coins of dreamers.

I might have watched, from the far-side, as the old-town square
Dispatched its slow procession coward a valley
And have seen some of these people, at least in miniature,
Whom we are giving up on almost daily