Pieces of Wine

“Neo-Cubism”
Tile Painting by Robert Lyn Nelson
From pacificatileart.com

a deep swimming sense
of belonging to culture
to history cleanses me

Mediterranean
empire and renaissance
father and mother

the martial red grape
the esthetic green globe
twin vines of my blood

vital vintages yield
the spine and the soul
of a civilized west

rich in letters and arts
liquescent science slakes
intellectual thirst

faiths practiced in goblets
grace pagan and Christian
altarcloth meals

stains drift from the past
come to rest upon tongues
that tincture the future

ideas formed in fragments
assemble themselves into
savory ancestries

liquid stitches of time
binding Caesars to Medici
ferment my history

leaving me merely a swatch
at the edge of a quilt set with
cups of tradition