Lake of Albano and Castle Gandolfo

Lake of Albano and Castle Gandolfo

Was he alone by candlelight, with fireflies
flitting around him in the evening cool?
The sun is dying over the tiny castle
silhouetted on the blackness of the hill,
its towers and turrets still just visible.
No roundness in the sun’s shape now:
its eerie glow is flecked with almost yellow,
spreading light not warmth to the clouds
which rise like billowing smoke from below.
The lake is split in two diagonally, its sheen
half-shadowed grey, half streaked silk
and rising out of nothing like a mound.
Night bewitches the screen of leaves:
where light falls, the brush deceives.