Below the Umbrian hilltops, mugged by mourning fog,
the regiments of ripe tobacco fields unravel green
where all the delicate courtiers of this autumn draw
vermillion coverlets upon the naked bed of summer,
arrange the mortal liveries of their gold estate
as heralds to the kingdom of our winter.
Here, in these fallowing fields, lies all there is to know
of death and life – that every future comes to bathe
and bloom in the fertile blood of its tragic past, and yield
to the moment, this, the holy seed of Now. All this
appears as a face or figure frescoed on a wall,
and these survive and serve as a balm to the death of years.
Here are the stillness of columns and painted saints,
where the bells of heaven toll, as only they can hear.
Marc Wiegand has participated at a number of universities, among these the University of Texas at Austin, and the British Institute for International and Comparative Law. He has been an Affiliate Fellow in visual arts at The Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy. His poetry has appeared in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Blue Unicorn, The Penwood Review, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Westward Quarterly, and, soon, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets. He is an international lawyer and exhibiting visual artist who lives and works in the Texas Hill Country.