{"id":81182,"date":"2016-10-17T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=81182"},"modified":"2016-10-17T12:21:59","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T11:21:59","slug":"farewell-to-florence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/10\/farewell-to-florence\/","title":{"rendered":"Farewell to Florence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"emanuel-garcia\"<\/a>I left a jacket
\nPurposefully
\nAt the Piazza della Signoria<\/p>\n

Not because it was a little short in the arms
\nOr overworn, or because its pockets
\nTangled up the things I placed in them
\nWith shredded fabric decades old that
\nMade it hard to extricate what I consigned<\/p>\n

Nor because it wasn\u2019t handsome
\nOr had ceased to be a bulwark to a biting wind<\/p>\n

Least of all because of style
\nWhich, when I bought it,
\nHad the stamp of \u2018modern\u2019 timelessness,
\nSo I was told<\/p>\n

This jacket \u2013 it was a gentle brown,
\nSoft, but not too delicate,
\nA skin whose sacrifice was compensated
\nBy the care and skill it took
\nTo make it lendable to me<\/p>\n

And as a second skin it helped
\nTo get me through a lot of
\nWeathering<\/p>\n

The moment of its purchase
\nWas a happy one, as moments go<\/p>\n

But, you see,
\nThe thing about moments
\nIs that they\u2019re surrounded by a
\nFore and aft, embedded in
\nSome kind of pool that stretches
\nEverywhere until it\u2019s time to sink<\/p>\n

It was the endless stream of youth at the piazza,
\nThe fusillade of dreams under
\nThe gaze of Perseus the other day
\nThat made me wonder not
\nHow innocence becomes a
\nMurderer or thief, but worse,
\nA pillar of the state<\/p>\n

I watched these happy ghosts
\nWho knew bright promises could lie in wait,
\nExperts in hope and, in their
\nNecessary selfishness, the truth
\nAbout what it should mean
\nTo be alive
\nDespite immortal worms of grief
\nThat crawl inside a heart and
\nSometimes stir when least anticipated \u2013<\/p>\n

That<\/em> they could take, and
\nBroken loves and the incessant
\nEffort to be understood
\nWith language laying siege and
\nTaking prisoners of every word<\/p>\n

That<\/em>, I\u2019m convinced, they could endure<\/p>\n

Until they reached a line<\/p>\n

Or was it more a mien,
\nA mask of crusted blood that
\nThickly grew with every new recruit
\nWho fell upon the easy side of power
\nAnd stayed \u2013
\nThe face of how things had to be \u2013
\nForgetting who they were or
\nWho they might have been?<\/p>\n

I prayed for more to make the harder choice<\/p>\n

And got the thought
\nTo leave my jacket,
\nLate at night,
\nUpon the shoulder of an ancient
\nBut decided it was better fitting
\nAt his feet: it still had use, and
\nLittle history to burden
\nThe discoverer<\/p>\n

I bought myself another on a whim,
\nPartly to celebrate, partly to rejoice
\nBecause it wasn\u2019t out of need<\/p>\n

And I could face Medusa\u2019s face
\nThis time with levity<\/p>\n

___________________________________<\/p>\n

Sojourns<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>2014\u00a0emanuelegarcia.com<\/a><\/em> – Dr. Emanuel E. Garcia is an American poet, novelist and physician who now resides in New Zealand. He may be contacted at <\/em>emanuelegarcia@gmail.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I left a jacket
\nPurposefully
\nAt the Piazza della Signoria<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}