¨ ‘Florence’ —page

‘Florence’

The song is brought on the current, surging and swelling to dizzying heights, before retreating once more to wrap around the lovers, tangled in each other’s embrace. The open window beckons it in; outside, the city is quiet. The terracotta roofs are heady and sultry beneath the sun’s swift retreat. Night is drawing closer, tendrils of darkness steal between alleyways, along roofs, they float along the current, and all is still. The oppressive heat of the day lingers yet; the clamoring of bells ignites the city all at once, lancing and reverberating through stone and tile, racing toward the violet hued hills, cresting and rolling in the distance. The leaden sound pauses, contemplative, as if surveying the wildflowers. It streams through their rank; they scatter in all directions; there is an infinite and allusive feeling of bliss, but no one to experience it. Now dusk is here; the air is thick and bleary and grey, and the hills gaze languidly upon the lovers far below, their whispered communion the only sound beneath that dark and fevered sky.