The Praying Mantis
by David Hartnett (1952- )
Suddenly I am walking up a cobbled street
At noon in Siena twenty years ago.
You are beside me. Through billows of dry heat
Hand in hand, heading for the Duomo,
We near a water trough set on stone claws
Beneath a trickling lion head spout and pause
Breathlessly in an oleander's shade.
Watching the water's dusty skin cast glints
Against leaves' splintered undersides of jade,
You point to where, in stiffened vigilance,
On a branch, etched by the sky's bleached exposure,
A praying mantis grasps its pure composure.
Until the memory rose in me unbidden,
Making a difficult thing simple to say,
It was as if the years between had hidden
How, having stood to watch the mantis pray
From the shade of the oleander by the trough,
We turned and walked uphill into our love.