Catania

Catania is a rackety, raffish city
sprawled between Mount Etna and the sea.

Tourists pass through without stopping,
on their way to fashionable coastal resorts.

It is crowded with noisy scooters,
dented cars and fearless pedestrians.

The pavements are hard black lava
but the walls are pistachio, apricot, lemon.

For a short while I have had breakfast
on the terrace among the pale domes,

wandered through back streets of tiny shops,

sat in the Piazza Duomo watching the world go by

and, standing on the balcony outside my room,
I have wondered at the cloud of swallows,
pausing on their long migration north.