Poetry in Pisa

We took time out to zip to Pisa! How can you go to Italy without seeing it! I have been enthralled by it since I first saw it in a book as a small child. It was far out! My only feeling was that it felt somehow wrong that such a wonderful cultural and historical piece of architecture would be surrounded by so many stalls filled with cheap trinkets and travelling sale people trying to persuade you to buy a hand drum or hand bag! Right outside the gate in a re-furbished old building is Mc Donald’s! Yes, Mc Donald’s! But if you find a quiet place, close your eyes and ignore the ugliness of 21^st Century Capitalise, you can really appreciate the enormity of where you are.

A poem written by Cheryl Beer sat underneath the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Tell the people

We might be built differently

But we won’t fall down

Not until we are ready

Not until it’s our time to fall

Build me a tower

So tall

That Kings and Queens

And one and all

Will travel far

To dress and dine

For Summer time

And Italian wine

With columns built

On wooden stake

Stacked higher than

A wedding cake

And build they did

On marsh soil

Foundations soon

To twist and coil

And sink into the boggy earth

Giving birth …

To a sinking feeling!

Then make it stand

With greater weight

One side to other

Make it straight

So build they did

Columns longer

Weighing more

To stretch it out

From top to floor

But still it beat

Their human thinking

Engulfed by nature

And still sinking

A hundred years

A hundred more

They could not

Stand by and ignore

Their beauty tall

About the land

Losing her height

In soft quick sand

More than a lifetime’s conundrum!

So fill her boots

With heavy lead

Tie her down

Concrete instead

Of wooden piles

For miles they travelled

Wise men a-gasp

To try to stop

Her sinking fast

And then

She

Stopped!

Stood still

Leaning just so far until

She could lean no more …

Without exploding to the floor

And now they queue

Like humans do

To wonder at

This trick of nature

Balanced

A stack of cup and saucers

On the head of the high trapeze

Balanced

A tall giraffe

Bent upon her knees

As if shifted by the breeze

A tower of strength in Pisa

So if you choose

To travel there

Be sure that you take extra care

Buy trinkets sold on market stalls

A keepsake safe

In case she falls

 

Pisa Thoughts

Build me a tower

To bend and shake

That never falls

And just in case

I trip and make

My own mistakes

Know that I am

Only leaning

When barely seeing

Is still believing