The core of the earth is molten.
Etna and Vesuvio sip from the same hot spring,
speak the same language,
with long pauses,
a thousand years,
between the replies of these brothers.
Etna waits for Catania to cool on the coast.
Between baths of hard filament lava layers
she takes his legacy, finds strength,
and rebuilds her long straight streets.
Catania's houses stand like rows of soldiers
in the snow-frosted shadow of Etna's sloped torso.
Here Sicilia's hottest cauldrons left moonscape roads.
Here the gardens yield carefully tended
tomato plants bent heavy with unblemished plums,
shiny green sweet peppers full and hard,
pregnant with laces of seeds in their bellies.
The crater Vesuvio has grown old and vacant
leaving Napoli a legacy of fossils.
Campi Flegri, a gaseous geyser-infested oracle,
hisses his father's slumber sounds;
the last breath visions of one who's seen much.
Napoli knows Vesuvio's meaning unfolds only
with a readiness for understanding.
The casks of chianti on her tables
dull the sulphuric odor of his geology.
Here molten rock sealed and silenced the prideful Pompeii.
Here enriched by light and reborn soil,
grapevines tat lace across trellises,
broad leafed trees sprout the flesh of figs and
spread shade over scarred caesarian hills.
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The brother volcanos dream,
between sighs and eruptions.
On land once harsh,
the sister cities learn
the secrets of cultivating scorched ground.
Hands reach into the crust,
grasp the dirt, and
break fingernails to grow fruit
for the marinara
for the vino
for tua famiglia.