The sparkling Duomo in the darkness

Stone outlined in green and rose and white

As if a paper cut out of a giant’s hand

As if the stone itself glows with inner light

Tourists, unthinking, circumambulating this glimmering Kaaba

Like them, I am in awe, shivering at its wonder

Tier upon tier, panel upon panel drawing eye upward

Into lost and questioning darkness above

This endless flow of humanity, come to worship its beauty

Do we do well to come here? And in the beauty, do we find some echo of the nameless?

Do we see the price paid for its making?

The darkness hidden in the light?

The craftsmen who made it are gone now … they do not come to tell us of their laboured days and years

Did they wonder or care about the feet who would one day come to mark out this place?

To see the Duomo they would never see?

As they patiently carved and polished?

Do we understand their whispered wisdom

Threaded through weft and warp of this wondrous creation?

Photo by Ranjana Curtotti 9 June 2024
Creative commons image by Petar Milošević https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Florence_Duomo_from_Michelangelo_hill.jpg