Still, Still

I teach my Italian cousin
two meanings for "still" —
"as always," and "without movement."

Still here, I say, though we
could die any time at our age.
We think of this at the cafe,

sometimes aloud.
The inexplicable benediction
of some faceless God

will decide when and who
submits to the scythe. Meanwhile,
we ponder how to let the sun

enter in as before,
let the rain and the hills
keep on feeding the soul.

On the piazza
pigeons peck at crumbs.
Their iridescence flits

between black and green
with violet silks. Tourists
come and go like so many sailboats

dotting the lake. How to be still
as the harbor at dawn, to remain
unmoved and unmoving,

the still life of a bowl of fruit,
of the mountain in whose shadow
we speak?