It is we who are fleeting
gone before too long
and beauty remains.

Imagining Venice without the water.

Trudging through the empty ways
as the wave of days wash over me
where once I was the sea

vast if vast it be
was the thing known as humanity
which was another sea that
washed over me.

The eye of time takes time to blink
and in that time or the time it took
books were burned
the world being blind turned away
and the wave of days washed over me
in another time on another sea.

beauty remains

I scrub up well
not too good
but good enough which
is not enough to boast about
but I do

In Venice where glass is blown and
vases made for the tourist trade
an ill wind has thrown the city
into deep despair

Medici doesn't care about the canals being no longer there

beauty remains in the beholding eye until that too must die
but
beauty remains.