Serendipity
Sonnet © 2020 Matthew de Lacey Davidson
The Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière
(in Lyon, in France) — it sits upon a hill.
Exhausted, I once tried to make it there,
but couldn’t. Bleary-eyed, I found, instead,
purely by accident, outspread,
beyond the puppets, standing silent, still:
the amphitheatre (or Odeon),
built by Claudius, and almost two
thousand years ago. But then, upon
a wall (and there for all to see),
the best example of calligraphy
on brass from ancient times. I never knew
that sometimes, something better brings us awe —
like the basilica I never saw.
The word “puppets” (Line 5) has to do with the many stores in Lyon which sell marionettes when I visited. In addition, there was someone playing Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel on the piano in the building where my hotel was. However, I couldn’t figure out a way to get that into the poem.
