remembering Florence

I thought of Florence yesterday, listening to a song I must have listened to a hundred times while I was there, walking in the February street before they flooded with eager springtime audiences. Walking by the lumbering silence of the duomo, I remember every shop that filled the arches of Michelangelo's workshops. I remember every turn of the walk, the placement of every curb, step, gypsy, and haphazardly placed masterpiece. I remembered how alive it all made me feel, how wonderfully alone. How each footstep felt as though I was sinking deeper into the cobblestones, how each footstep seemed to irreversibly change some part of me. I remembered the way the cold white marble felt in my hands, the weight of its fragile opportunity. I remember how aware I was of the river no matter where I was, and how easily a bridge over its waters went unnoticed as an ordinary street. I remembered feeling lucky every single day and thinking endlessly about how I could feel that way everyday from then on. Yesterday for a moment I wished I had written every second down. But I remember every heartbeat, every brushstroke, every turn of the wheel, every chip of marble that hit the soil.