Leaning Tower

 

“Behind the Leaning Tower of Pisa” by Richard Neuman

 

feet set upon faults

of a barren dark age

a Romanesque tower

arising from torpor

leans into an aura

of renaissance light

seven bells seven tiers

in precarious symmetry

lost of their plumb

arches flourished in

circular marble arcades

Galileo employed to

refute and invalidate

Aristotelean gravity

tall sacred portals

affording the

common and curious

prospect and perch

overlooking the cycles

of conquest and failure

by sovereign city-states

sorely afflicted

with habits of war

seven tiers seven bells

octave intervals

tuned to the scales

that awaken devotion

a calling to prayer for

the day and the morrow

a song of the future

a clarified music of hope

ringing high in the air

over desolate valleys

and unhappy hills

across torrents of time

undiminished its echoes

reach down through

the indifferent silence

of secular centuries

drowning the violent din

of fanatical heresies

echoes that live

just as long as the

evident beat of

one virtuous heart