Running Down a Dream

(with apologies to Tom Petty)

I dream now, and I dream of the twisting streets of Italy.  I think I'm dreaming of Florence, but it's all blending together with Rome in a pastiche.  One moment, I am standing and looking up at the multicolored sky in the middle of the piazza in front of the Spanish Steps, the sound of flowing water the only sensation.  Then, I am beneath a magnificent dome arching high above me like the cupped hand of God protecting me from all harm.  The next, in the way of dreams, the scene flickers, and I'm on the Ponte Vecchio, scaffolding gone, staring out at a night scene of stars on water, something I never saw save in the eye of my imagination.

Wherever this dreamland my mind is conjuring happens to be, it is not a modern place.  There are no cars, no hoardes of tourists.  The only light, when there is any, is that golden light that bathes the world of dreams, soft, surreal, and seemingly coming from everywhere.  It somehow suits this landscape perfectly, the colors, the stone buildings, the marble fountains. 

Maybe they were made for dreams and dreamers, Rome and Florence.  Maybe that's why poets and artists are born there, move there, sing of them, have built them lovely, lovely in their ancient splendor.  There is something about them them calls out to the soul that loves beauty, even from five thousand miles away, and my helpless dreamer's heart can't help but yearn.