without inhibition

this is one of my most favorite poems:


Piazza Di Spagna, Early Morning
by Richard Wilbur

I can’t forget

How she stood at the top of that long marble stair

Amazed, and then with a sleep pirouette

Went dancing slowly down to the fountain-quieted square;



Nothing upon her face

But some impersonal loneliness—not then a girl,

But as it were a reverie of the place,

A called-for falling glide and whirl;



As when a leaf, petal, or thin chip

Is drawn to the falls of a pool and, circling a moment above it,

Rides on over the lip—

Perfectly beautiful, perfectly ignorant of it.

posted by meg johnson @ Sunday, December 11, 2005