POETRY | CAMPO D’ FIORE | ROME | MARTYR

Giordano (Bruno)

The death of a friar

Photograph by Author (Giordano Bruno, public monument, Campo de’ Fiore, Rome, Italy)

Thoughts
spanning time
not constrained
by rosary beads
or councils
or the coarse ropes that bind me
to this blackened pillar.

Expansive my words
expansive the worlds
I’ve prounounced prior to Galileo
proudly parsed by my lips
not paused
or punctured by the nail
that you pounded and pierced
into my tongue
nor halted by flames that burnt
through my skin.

I turn my head away
 — away from your cross — 
I repulse you more
than Luther pinning words
on Wittenberg’s doors.

My body burns slowly
as my friar’s cloak
lay folded
safely in a darkened sanctuary
three cities behind me
waiting for a young mind to
cloak himself with your ignorance —
may he be a Copernicus
may his questions, his knowledge
rise
from these lapping flames.