Taormina, Revisited

Never come back, you said, to these wild slopes Where the slow wind spends all the almonds’ flowers, And a lone shepherd, climbing wearily, gropes From ledge to ledge, the sheep bells chiming like hours Aging the village below us. Never come back, O never, you said. But I return today, Hearing remembered breakers leap and crack, Drowning the silence with the thunder of spray. Nothing has changed. It is only you and I. Peace rides the cobbled streets; the almond pours Its sun-hot petals beneath the quiet sky— But eyes of lovers carry the light of yours, Their lips your laughter, the songs that we have sung A drift of Time away, when we were young.