Crescendo

A long pent-up Mount Etna
Suffuses the dark Catanian sky
With charcoal red,
Numbs the alabaster
Curvy hills with flame
That slowly flows a mile
Curls, then rests,
Scintillating just a while;
Drops of dew,
Hanging on to leaves of grass
Meaning to twitch the seed
Before mutating into vapor.

Etna, you might say,
Is a local upheaval,
A curse, an earmark of hellish wrath.
But no!
It's rather a healing move,
Rectification, not cacophony,
Not self-incrimination.
Sicily's in love with Etna,
And Etna with Sicily.

Ali H. Raddaoui