Walking across a piazza in Florence
diagonally, rid of Edward for a few hours.
Aged twenty, a colonnade of repeated
relief that Italy was not relinquished
despite bad decisions. Architectural
ecstasy. Freedom frescoed. Excavated joy.
Twenty years later: functional Whitehorse.
A chain-link fence on the way to work
is a diagonal frieze of diamonds
framing broad, white mountains.
Epiphanies at other ages, before and after,
in more predictable places:
On Aonach Eagach ridge. Aeroplanes
above icefields and oceanic wind farms.
Or simply scooping soft ashes from the stove.
Switching off a computer.
Arching backward in a kayak
on the wobbling sea, crown to fibreglass.