Matera
I lost my ability to think for myself
As I sat atop the Church of Santa Maria de Idris
Carved into the cliffside while I sat sewn into its ridges
I had spent the former sun’s passage wandering the City of Stones
The hours loosened themselves as I passed beneath canopies of trailing vines
Draped over blanched bricks steeped
In shades of beige-and-brown-and-orange-and-grey
Vestiges of the past worn
Down each wall, each path
Woodwinds whistle and beckon me from the distance
But my anticipation allows no acquittance
I remain doggedly beholden to
The eventual night that promised to keep me alone
I lie in the sky yet remain fastened to the earth
My back chiseled by the jagged rock I chose as my resting place
My head suspended beyond its edge
So that the stars sleep beneath me and the city
Yellowed by the languor of its dim-lit paths
Hangs in the balance of our sweet nothingness
Zig-zagging-every-which-way
Like an I Spy book brought suddenly to life
Can you spot the soul in a world you know possesses none?
I speak of this not with any great anguish
But with a peculiar sense of contentment
One that has itself become the source of my gravest grief
For its mere existence renders mine worthless
I strain to reach into the dimness of memory
I blacken my mind to conjure my darkest fears
I even invite you into my mind
Dressed in every shade of my maladjustment
But none can hold a candle to the sight that lies before me
Along with the sharp ache impressed on my back
For the first time, physicality exceeds my once-thought-bottomless-imagination
And my mind affords me no liberation
Though I have always sought after some chimerical escape
Only here do I realize that such elusion is but another passage through delusion
And not the good kind
The kind that leaves me feeling childish and naive
As though in leaving I had mistaken distance for transcendence
Believing myself to be rising above it all
When all along I had been looking at the whole world upside down
Copyright © Dillon Cain | Year Posted 2026
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