The Exaltation of the Tuscan Stars

Under the Tuscan stars,
near the city that Petrarch built,
I find myself — in the present —
contemplating the past.

How long has this road been here?
Did The Bastard draw breath here?
What great distance separates us-
how many years?

The hills still shrug with the same youthful yawn,
as first light stretches o’er the city,
and another day dawns.
But in those days, the mighty days of yore,
the sons of god went into the daughters of men.
Then bursting forth from the womb:
The Nephilim that rise from age to age,
reincarnations of the men of old, men of renown,
upon whom the Word is indebted,
upon which the world has been found.

Hierophany, par excellence,
reason’s mirthless rise;
the triumph of penultimate being,
overcome by a final disguise.