THE PONTE VECCHIO, FLORENCE... (FROM JANE RAFTER'S PAINTING...)

The Ponte Vecchio…

(from Jane Rafter’s painting…)

With a fiery splendour,

The reflective Arno’s inferno lurks in shade,

Slinking from the sunset’s amber flow,

In the lee of the manic Ponte Vecchio,

A magnet spanning the river,

Attracting a disorder of dishevelled iron filings…

Innumerable buildings blustered around the bridge

By gale, squall or typhoon,

Held still in a tight clutter, yet disarranged;

Chaotic, a hotchpotch,

Box upon box,

Muddled, not aesthetic,

Claustrophobic, yet estranged, 

A profusion of empty windows

On copious, scissored cardboard models,

Befuddled, yet mesmeric…

And with a flaming ardour,

The reflective Arno peddles its shade

And its depths are lined by a submerged conflagration

Of tunnels which fuel and disrupt the imagination…

Pete Ray

Jane Rafter’s painting of the Ponte Vecchio, on the River Arno in Florence… 

@jayrafts

When I was there in 2013, the buildings on the bridge were like cardboard models, piled and tumbling upon each other but busy…

Loved it there…