Story:Invisible Cities/Lucia

Beneath white clouds Lucia welcomes all wanderers Seamlessly its parapets rise wavelike from the sands Glass spires melting into the sunburned sky

At the crossroads of empires it authors constellations Where the ocean meets oasis it transcribes the songs Of a million voices not quite in unison

It is Lucia who collects the huddled poor As they throw themselves against its sandstone walls It filters music from the gnashing of teeth

If they will not enter on their own two feet They will come crawling across the desert Lucia always writes the words they need

The city accepts all it is given, gives all that is acceptable The way water balances the weight of the world And blood rushes to fill a fresh wound

To it who is gifted Much is demanded Much is unforgiven

Though it thinks it knows the meaning of patience The earth turns and its children follow Stealing away behind the gates

All things have ceilings except heaven Not all know what Ismael knows We only accept the love we think we deserve

The fables Lucia has collected remind it of its past The red hen who found none to bake bread and all to eat it And the she-wolf suffocating in the closet

Yet in time it has taken other tales into its heart Of the hare who for fortnights helped the tortoise finish the race And the quicksilver frog who gave the bird’s colors their names

Yes, Lucia has learned she deserves love Never succumbing to the soul’s dark night Like grass following a storm she always returns

Lucia knows the result of patience She is capable of seeing endings And all that comes after

Sickness into health Feeling into form Sound into verse

Loss into mercy