I am in Rome, Vatican bells tolling <br />a windowful of God and Bernini. <br />My neighbor, the Pope, has died <br />and God overnight, has wept <br />black mantles over the sainted <br />stone age whose skirted shadows <br />flit through to the main cave. <br /> <br />I nurse a cold. It must be error <br />to sniffle in sight of holiness. <br />"Liquids," the doctor said. He has <br />no cure, but since I have my choice, <br />I sip champagne. If I must sit <br />dropsical to Heaven, let me at least <br />be ritual to a living water. <br /> <br />In the crypt under the cave <br />the stone box in its stone row <br />has been marked for months now. <br />My neighbor knew where he was going. <br />I half suspect I, too, know, <br />and that it is nothing to sneeze at, <br />but am left to sneeze. <br /> <br />I drink my ritual Moët et Chandon <br />and wish (my taste being misformed <br />for the high authentic) I had <br />a California—a Korbel <br />or an Almaden. I like it "forward," <br />as clerics of such matters say, <br />not schooled to greatness. <br /> <br />It is loud in Heaven today <br />and in the great stone school <br />my neighbor kept. <br />The alumni procession of saints <br />is forming for him. Bells <br />clobber the air with portents. <br />I sniffle and sneeze, <br /> <br />wad kleenex, and sip champagne, <br />trying to imagine what it might be <br />to take part in a greatness, <br />or even in the illusion <br />of something like. The experience <br />might deepen my character, <br />though I am already near <br /> <br />the bottom of it, among wads and butts <br />of what was once idea. And the last swallow <br />I do not like the after-taste, if that <br />is what I am tasting. But this is ritual. <br />I toast my neighbor: may he <br />find his glass, and may its after-taste <br />be all that he was schooled to.<br /><br />John Ciardi<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-apartment-with-a-view/
