Everything looks better from far away- A short story poem

Everything looks better from far away- a short story poem

Chapter I - The Hills

The train sighed and left me upon the platform.

Alone among the rolling hills;

Each rising, falling like white elephants on parade.

Slow and solemn, guardians of silence.

From a distance, their bodies smooth,

folding of earth, a brushstroke from the Divines own hand.

And yet, up close, thorns hide in the grass,

Stones cutting at the heel,

Shadows turning cold when the sun slips through.

Everything looks better from far away.

It tis the distance that saves beauty from truth.

Chapter II - The Café

Following the road down,

Past vineyards whispering with green tongues.

The village reveals itself.

Stone walls, terracotta roofs,

Windows dripping with vine covered flora.

There, withstanding: the café.

Faded shutters leaning slightly,

As if bowing to the years.

The door crooked, the paint chipped,

But its heart ever alive.

Inside, spoons tapped cups like bells,

Two men quarreling over a card game,

the barista humming an aria under his breath.

The scent of the place struck first with an alluring temptation of

Coffee, dark and bold, which was

Softened with cream, sharpened with bourbon.

Stepping outside and claiming a table;

Facing the street as if it were a stage.

Chapter III - The Street

Life unfolds before me:

A Vespa buzzes like a dragonfly,

Children kick a ball with laughter,

An old woman balances bread and wine

Like relics in her arms.

The cobblestones glisten with last night’s rain.

Watching them all,

Each figure ordinary in closeness,

Yet already extraordinary once their shapes slips away into the distance.

Perhaps beauty is only memory’s trick:

The further it moves,

The sweeter it becomes.

Chapter IV - Il Cielo (The Sky)

Above, stretches a cathedral of blue.

Clouds float like linen sails,

Majestic ships on a sea without a shore.

From here, they were perfect.

But if I soared among them,

Would I not be soaked by storms,

Blinded by rain,

Shaken by thunder?

The nearer we draw to what we worship,

The more fragile its illusion becomes.

So it tis with skies.

So it tis with love.

Chapter V - Her Arrival

And then the air changes.

It carries a fragrance,

Jasmine, lilac, lavender, something eternal.

Something that made my chest ache.

She appears as if memory had summoned her:

A woman draped in light,

Her steps unhurried,

As though the world itself bent

To her pace.

Her hand brushes a lock of hair from her cheek,

And the motion was so human,

Yet so small,

Yet it broke open eternity.

I rise without meaning to,

Caught up in the gravity of her presence.

Chapter VI - L’Offerta (The Offering)

The garçon appears with a silver tray;

Balancing steaming cups like planets.

Her drink arrives with reverence,

Placed before her as though it were communion.

The scent lifts, mingling with her perfume.

Coffee and jasmine, earth and heaven,

The mortal and divine entwined.

Breathing it in,

Hoping it would brand itself,

Upon the chambers of my soul.

Chapter VII - The Smile

Her eyes wander,

And for a moment,

They find mine.

Her lips curved gently,

Not a lover’s invitation,

Not a stranger’s courtesy,

But something beyond both.

A smile that belongs,

Not to me alone,

But to the entire breathing world.

Trying to answer,

Yet my mouth, a bit clumsy,

Weighted with unsung confessions.

The silence roars louder than speech.

Perhaps silence is the truest language of love.

For words only fracture what the heart

Already knows whole.

Chapter VIII - The Waltz

Drifting closer,

Her dress, a current of colour in the sunlight.

Each step belongs to the melody,

I could not hear,

Yet I recognized the rhythm.

The garçon bowed his head slightly,

Receiving from her lips

A soft peck upon the cheek.

“Merci,” she whispered,

The syllable a pearl,

Falling into the sea of morning.

She lifted her cup,

And I envied the porcelain,

Envied the warmth it tasted,

Envied the closeness denied to me.

Chapter IX - The Distance

Everything looks better from far away.

From here, she was flawless,

A goddess in her quiet ritual.

Had I sat beside her,

What truths would rise?

Would I notice the faint lines of sorrow,

The small tremor in her hand,

The shadow resting beneath her smile?

Distance crowns perfection.

Closeness reveals reality.

And the heart is torn between them,

Dreaming of both beauty and truth,

Afraid of losing one to gain the other.

Chapter X - Il Momento Eterno (The Eternal Moment)

Time slows,

Unspooling like a ribbon.

The hills behind us seem to lean closer,

Guardians of the scene.

She is forever arriving,

Forever lifting the cup,

Forever bathed in gold.

And I..

I am forever the watcher,

Fixed in my chair,

Dreaming through glass,

Caught in the wound of distance.

Chapter XI - Le Souvenir (The Memory)

I left before her cup was empty.

Cowardice, perhaps,

Or reverence.

For I fear the spell would shatter

If I lingered.

I walk away slowly,

The hills reclaiming her,

Polishing her back into myth.

Her fragrance lingers in the air behind me,

As though the memory itself

Clung to the stones.

A sweet memory of a past yet to claim.

Everything looks better from far away.

And yet,

Even in absence,

I still reach,

Forever reaching,

For the dream just beyond my grasp.

Everything looks better from far away.