Through a break in the clouds
a sphere of light descends,
a bathysphere, and small
white houses open their doors,
extend a welcome. A boy
watches, stunned; the sun rises out
of the turquoise Mediterranean.
Leaves of olive trees rustle
in the sea wind, fishermen’s boats
rock gently in the harbor. At noon
we eat on a trestle table, pluck
from a basket of olives, a basket
of bread, a salver of tomatoes ripe
from a terraced garden. At evening,
the landscape’s transformed: in an
amphitheater I walk over cool stone
among dreamers constructing
the dream mosaic, a glittering
wall of small stones, each dream
added to the great
plenitude.
Travelers on Earth, Claudia Buckholts’ third collection of poems, was published by Main Street Rag in 2023. She received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Massachusetts Artists Foundation and the Grolier Prize. Her poems have appeared in New American Writing, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, Tar River Poetry, VerseDaily, and elsewhere.