Venezia, its musical key of brick and shade And the canals in rejoining polyphony Sweeten the dour Church-ear. From the impasto knife and loose brushwork, A thumb-smear of waves and gently-bristled strife Rise to assumption of the cloud-submerged bay, Mural of cristallo, only-light without landscape, Made too from the winds of Murano, Its clayed blowpipe of waterways molding The lagoon of blown glass and bouquet of colored sea-shadows.
The Tiber lies on its side, like the lion and fox, Licking its paws at empire’s dust, A drifting gaze of water that already foresees The swift-run northward to Romagna, Where the veined fur of the roe will succumb… A ripple twitches like one dark claw of the Borgia…
The watercolors of the Arno are a fresco On the wet plaster of the lips of Firenze, Tuscan fire-dream. Or like the warring leg in curve of counterpoise, Sprung foot-forward to the daring world And arm slung down in stone-victory From this valley, too much like Elah, With taunting eyes turned from the Medici toward Rome.
Titian revolutionized the style of painting that contained no landscape in his "Assumption of the ******" (circa 1515) "cristallo" is actually a term that means clear glass, or glass without impurities, and was invented around the time of the Renaissance. "the lion and fox" was a nickname for Cesare Borgia. "Romagna" was his intended conquest. "Elah" was the valley where the Israelites camped when David defeated Goliath